Birth Right
by Alecca
Summary: Mina, a slayer in the distant future, considering herself to be the rightful heir of the slayer line, decides to go back in time and stop Buffy from spreading the slayer powers. It's up to the duo of Angel and Spike to stop her. COMPLETE
1. The Spark

Rating: PG-13, whatever rating the show has.

Spoilers: S1 to 7 Btvs, S1 to 5 Ats.

Author's note: I had decided to stop writing Btvs/Ats fanfic, but I got this idea and I couldn't help myself :D Besides the new season of Angel got me thinking about my decision...

**BIRTH RIGHT**

**Prologue: ****The Spark**

_New York City  
Year: 2083_

_Location: The Museum of Unnatural History_

Her name was Mina, she was 16 and she ruled her highschool like a queen among peasants, a god among mortals. She had the guts, the courage, the smarts, the beauty to dominate and be worshipped by those inferior to her. And what exactly made her so special? She was a slayer, duh! Anyone could give you that answer, but Mina didn't think it was such a big deal, considering every fifth girl you met on the street was a slayer. She thought it was ridiculous for all those other girls to have slayer powers! They didn't even know how to use them right for god's sake!

Walking through the halls of the Museum of Unnatural History she pondered the status of the old slayers, when only one was born in every generation and had to fight vampires and demons and the forces of evil all by her self! She thought that must have been the greatest thing one could imagine... To be the only one aware of that secret world, to be a hero, a superhuman standing between right and wrong, the real and the surreal...It all made her blood run faster, an adrenaline rush like nothing she had ever experienced.

But breaking out of the past's hold over her and her imagination that was getting the best of her, she slowly woke up to the horror of the present's reality. Everybody knew now...About slayers, about vampires, about...well, everything. How come? That damn Watcher's Council of course! After it was blown to smithereens - she wished it would have stayed that way! - they regrouped and seeing as the world was suddenly full of slayers, they thought it would be too hard for them to control them all, so they did the only thing they thought they could do: let others control them. And how could they do that? Tell the whole world about them and vampires and every little thing. They considered the advantages were bigger than the damage. And yeah, sure, they had been right. The demon society had a lot to suffer from it and many relocated to other dimensions, were the pastures were greener and the people more oblivious about their existence. Certain demon species on the other hand - the more peaceful kind - profited more from it. Why, there was even a demon governor somewhere in the US. And vampires didn't have it so bad either. People being as crazy as they were, they actually organized a Vampires' Rights society that protected the so called pacifist vampires and took up donations in blood and money for them. The old ones though had either went into hiding or were very discreet about their existence because this new world inhibited them greatly and historians were constantly chasing them for information on certain events.

Racism had reached whole new levels...But the Watcher's Council was the one that really profited from this global outing. They created a slayer syndicate - you could sign up when you were 15 -, had opened several firms that specialized in the extermination of trouble- making demons and had opened the museum - one of many - that she was now standing in.

To Mina, it all just sounded wrong. There should have been only one slayer, one watcher, one destiny that could change humanity...but no, there were thousands...and that was only in New York, she figured the whole world had a couple of millions. When one slayer died 10 more sprouted wings and it seemed unfair to her. And who had decided this overpopulation of slayers? One person. One little insignificant person who she hated and admired at the same time. One slayer. She stopped in front of a statue that represented that certain slayer. Buffy Summers, a head smaller than her, wielding the now legendary scythe in one hand, in a fighting stance among Turok-Hans. A scene from the last battle of Sunnydale. The battle that had changed everything for slayerkind. It was the end of the solitude and the burdens, the end of singularity and uniqueness, an end slayerkind should have never known - or at least that was what Mina thought. Buffy Summers had done her predecessors a great dishonor and with it took away the rightful place of her future heirs. There was no more throne to give, no knowledge that would be passed on from one slayer to the next. No, now there was multitude and the Slayer's Manual Volumes 1,2,3 for every slayer in need, that could be bought at any library for just 12.99/Volume.

It was abnormal, especially since Mina thought that if the slayer tradition had continued she would have been the heir, the one born into her generation, destined to be the slayer. THE slayer, not A slayer. And it made her furious, but she was powerless...She had thought of a solution to her problem, many times, but nothing doable came to her. She considered killing all the slayers, but that would only bring more slayers and more and more and she knew who was the last one to try to kill the slayer line and she thought it horrible to even think about something it had. But a few days ago, it had suddenly occurred to her, a solution that wouldn't imply killing anyone!

She knew time travel was possible - she wasn't so sure about travel in the future, but she knew it was definitely possible in the past, if one had the right relic and the right information of course... And she technically had both. The book that would offer the information was in the museum and the relic was kept somewhere safe deep within the archives of a certain evil demon law firm turned demon hunting business in Los Angeles. And if she was right, it was still run by a vampire that had once known the most famous of slayers. She looked at a picture mounted on a wall in the gallery room. It looked like something people used to call a Kodak moment: a picture of a blonde teenager, a shy looking redhead, a goofy boy, a stuffy librarian, a fiery brunette and a tall mysterious and handsome man.

Mina sighed as she looked at the picture for a long moment before moving on towards the book display. It wasn't her fault Buffy had been so careless and hadn't thought about those who would come after her. She had only thought of herself, but now Mina was ready to go back and set things right and stop her from making that foolish mistake. It was her time, her destiny to reclaim her birth right.

_End Prologue_

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	2. Ignition

**Part 1  
Ignition**

_Los Angeles  
Year: 2083  
Location: Wolfram & Hart Demon Hunting Inc._

He walked down the halls whistling a song, feeling a little cheerier than he usually did. He thought the reason for it was the fact that the old blood was coming back. Well, not literally...though Wolfram & Hart could have made that possible a few years back he supposed . Unfortunately - or fortunately, he couldn't really decide - nearly all branches of Wolfram & Hart had closed down after demons were outted. Too much exposure, Eve had told him during their last meeting. All ties to the superevil law firm had been dissolved, though they had been kind enough to still leave Angel the proper resources to continue his work in LA. For old times' sake, Eve had told him. He had even received a visit from Holland Manners himself on that last day when Wolfram & Hart had still been a law firm. It had been an interesting visit, he had to admit. A speech about rivalry and worthy adversaries and regrets that they had never gotten to fight on the same side, of good or evil , a last goodbye and a see you in hell. He smiled as he passed down the corridors and was saluted by various members of his staff.

"'Morning, bossy," Harmony's cheery voice greeted him as he headed for his office. On her desk, the headline of a newspaper announced: 'Book of Katurye stolen!' and under it in smaller letters: "The first ever recorded theft in the New York Museum of Unnatural History", but Angel was too distracted to even notice the newspaper.

"Morning, Harm," he returned the salute. When Harmony had first been introduced as his secretary he had been more than skeptical about her, but over the years he had come to appreciate her. Maybe not for her 'wonderful' personality, but for the mere fact that she was still there, never changing, never old, eternal, like him. Before he had gotten a soul, time passing by meant nothing to him, but after...when he actually cared for people, it had been hard on him, too hard. That was why this day was such a happy one! The old blood coming back to Wolfram & Hart. He smiled again.

Harmony entered the office without knocking, giddy and excitedly told Angel:

"They're here! They're here!" only now Angel realized that maybe he wasn't the only one missing his old friends. He considered calling them in his office, but decided against it, if he went out himself to welcome them it would be more familiar and they were family after all. He got up from his desk and followed Harmony out of the office, feeling strangely as giddy as she seemed to be, but trying not to show it on the outside.

In front of Harmony's desk stood two teenagers, a girl and a boy each holding a large cardboard box and looking around themselves fascinated by their surroundings.

"Here he is," Harmony told them all smiles. The teenagers turned to look at Angel. The girl had long curly brown hair, brown eyes, glasses on her nose and was slim and pretty. The boy, a bit taller than the girl, had short dark hair and glasses on his nose as well. They were both dressed neatly in preparation school outfits. The girl was wearing a skirt reaching down to her knees. She smiled shyly at Angel.

"I'm Angel," he introduced himself.

"We know," the girl hurried to say. They were excited to meet him as well. "We saw the pictures!"

"Great-grandmother had tons," the boy added betraying a British accent.

"But you don't know us," the girl continued and after a pause to catch her breath she said: "I'm Winifred. My friends call me Fred, but everyone in the family calls me Fred 2. Because of great-grandma."

"And I'm Wes 2. Because of great- grandfather," the boy added. They were the great-granddaughter and great- grandson of the original Wesley and Fred. Even though they didn't have children together, they had children with others, children that would marry and reunite their two families. And in the third generation of their family something had happened, a pair of twins were born, the kind that don't look alike, that had gathered inside them all the great passions and qualities of their great-grandparents. Wesley and Fred's family hadn't been involved in the demon hunting business since their retirement in their late 50s and now their family had found its way back to Wolfram & Hart and Angel through the twins, Fred 2 and Wes 2.

"My brother insists in using that ridiculous British accent ever since we found out our great-grandfather was British. I think we were 10 at the time," the girl smiled and the boy gave her a frustrated look.

"It's good to have you here," Angel said smiling. "So I assume, Fred 2 will be in the science division and Wes 2 in the research division?"

"No, no," Wes 2 smiled. "She's the research genius. A regular bookworm."

"And he's the science wizz," Fred pointed out.

"Wonderful," Angel managed to say. Looking at them, he lost himself in the past for a few moments and wondered if having them at the firm wouldn't be frustrating instead of great as he had expected it to be. They were the spitting image of their great- grandparents and surely to someone like Angel, and even like Harmony it would be easy to start confusing them with the original Fred and Wes.

"Is something wrong?" Fred 2 asked concerned.

"No, I just..." Angel sighed. "You look so much like your great-grandparents."

"You're like...almost the same!" Harmony added as well.

"We know," Wes 2 smiled. "Just the personalities are a little mingled."

"That's going to take some time to get use to," Angel admitted. "But let's put the past aside and let me show you your offices."

The two teenagers nodded excitedly and Wes 2 started walking down the hallway Harmony had stirred him towards. Before following, Fred 2 looked back at Angel and smiled weakly:

"This is really weird for you, isn't it?" she asked after a moment of hesitation.

"Yeah. You too?" he asked arching an eyebrow.

"Yup," she nodded. "I mean you used to know our great-grandparents and look at you! You're as young as you were back then. I mean I know what a vampire is, but..."

"Feeling eternity up close is scary," he understood.

"That's one way of putting it," she lifted her shoulders. "If we could just put the past behind us..."

"It'd be a whole lot easier. But the past is the reason I'm happy you're both here," Angel told her and smiled. "But if you want we could try to start fresh," he made a pause before adding, extending his hand: "Hi, I'm Angel, I run this company and I hunt demons for a living."

"Hi, I'm Fred," she shook his hand returning the smile. "And I just love what you've done with the place. I heard this used to be an evil law firm."

"Yes, but we're reformed now, we only help the good and kill the evil," he extended his hand towards the hallway. "Let me show you to your office."

"Thank you," Fred 2 giggled as she passed in front of Angel and was shortly followed by him down the hallway. As they were walking, a big crowd of people suddenly filled the corridor coming out of a conference room. "Wow, what's with all the people?"

"The research department had an all- nighter," Angel explained. "We've been trying to track down this demon that surfaces every 50 years and feeds on human brains. Mostly very smart peoples' brains."

"Is he really dangerous?" Fred 2 asked excitedly. Though she and her brother had read about demons and vampires, they hadn't really encountered any evil ones, only the reformed or peaceful kind anyone could meet in the city.

"Yeah, I'd say so...Last time he came out to play he ate half our research department's brains," he remembered the gruesome events that became the reason for Fred and Wes's retirement. They had grown old and they had told him that everything was becoming too much for them and that they needed their peace and closure. So they had left.

"He-he was here?" Fred 2 was slightly taken aback. She had always pictured Wolfram & Hart as a stronghold, an untouchable fortress, but obviously it wasn't.

"The senior partners forgot to mention that his resting place was right underneath the building. It wasn't pretty, but we made sure he never came back here," he assured her. "The problem is we don't know where he went. We couldn't kill him last time because after eating so much of our staff he was full and he immediately wanted to go back underground. We couldn't track him down while he was dormant," he accidentally bumped into a young woman in a gray suit with glasses on her nose. "Excuse me," he apologized and looked at her strangely for a moment. "Do I know you?"

"I'm new," the girl said in a hurry and walked past him towards the lobby, betraying a certain amount of impatience as she did. Fred 2 looked back after her.

"Well, she looked like she was in a hurry," she noted. "You know her?"

"No," Angel looked behind towards the lobby, lost in thought for a second, then something suddenly dawned on him and he chuckled: "She was a slayer. Vampires can always smell them. It's like a feeling of deja-vu."

"You must get a lot of deja-vus considering how many slayers there are out there now," Fred 2 smiled as she started walking down the corridor again.

"Yeah, it was strange at first - okay downright freaky - but now I'm used to it," he admitted as he followed her down the hallway.

"Does it bother you that there are so many now? I mean you lived in the one slayer era for a while. And you did know The One," she pointed out and Angel looked at her confused. "The one, you know, Buffy Summers," Angel smiled realizing who she meant. "My friends can't believe that - for a short period of time anyway - my great- grandfather was The Slayer's watcher. There's even a picture of him in the Museums of Unnatural History in both New York and London and well pretty much any country that has an unnatural history museum. And it's also handy to throw my heritage in the faces of those slayers who are too smug for their own good. They act like they own the world sometimes."

"More people fighting off demons - people who actually know what they're doing - I have no problem with that," he paused before adding: "The One," he couldn't help but smile. "Is that what they call her these days? Sounds like something out of a bad SF movie."

"That and The Slayer, she's considered the mother of all slayers so naturally she's the original and best there ever was," she paused: "To them. She was the one who made it possible for all of them to have superpowers, the ones before her don't matter."

"I wonder what she would have said if she had known all this," he said but it was a question he had mostly asked himself not Fred 2. He thought back to the slayer he had bumped into only a few minutes earlier and still found that her face awakened an odd feeling within him and it wasn't just deja-vu, there was a bad feeling there too. He didn't know how right his gut feeling had been, for the slayer he had encountered had been none other than Mina Parker, come to retrieve the relic she needed to travel into the past to fix what she thought had been done wrong.

Access to the relic archive was of course very limited, but previously knocking out a lonely Wolfram & Hart employee - one that had clearance from the science department - in a bar had been an easy job. Now she had the access, the problem was were exactly the relic she was looking for was found because the archive - as she found out after entering it - was huge. Walking through the rows of steel shelves filled with various objects she was filled with a feeling of utter frustration. How was she supposed to find what she was looking for in all that junk?

"May I help you?" a voice suddenly asked startling her. She turned to see a little old man with white hair and big glasses standing behind her in the darkness of the archive.

"I..." she quickly wondered whether the old man thought she was suspicious.

"You're the new girl, right? The black arts expert? From the Research department. Rogers told me he'd send you," the old man said rubbing his hands together. "Now what can I get you?"

"I'm looking for..." she couldn't believe the stroke of luck she was having. "The ring of Batt-hura."

"Hmm," the man let out and looked around a bit uneasy.

"Is something wrong?" she was prepared to knock him out if he suspected even the slightest thing. She had come so far, she wasn't going to risk not getting her hands on the relic because of one insignificant person now.

"I'm afraid I can't help you," he shrugged. "The ring isn't here."

"No, it has to be here," she rose her voice slightly. "I know it's here. I've looked it up. The ring of Batt-hura has been in the possession of the LA branch of Wolfram & Hart for centuries."

"Of course it has," the man chuckled. "I meant it's not here, in the archive, it's with the special things."

"Special things?" she looked at him questioningly.

"Magical objects that are too powerful to be left unguarded," he explained. "If you want one of those you'll have to talk to the big boss himself."

"The vampire with a soul," she realized. "Angel."

"That's him. Rumor has it, the safe's in his private apartment, but no one knows for sure," he lifted his shoulders. "But just tell him you need it for research, he won't say no," he assured her.

"Of course," Mina smiled and as she exited the archive cursed in her mind repeatedly. She couldn't risk a frontal meeting with Angel and even if she could, he would surely ask more of the people from the research and science divisions about her and no one would recognize her. He would definitely not give her a powerful object before checking up on her first. So she was just going to have to find his apartment and break into it by force without seeming conspicuous.

Angel looked busy entertaining a young girl when she bumped into him so she assumed he wouldn't be bothering her anytime soon. She had heard Angel had a soft spot for teenage girls - or at least that was what the rumors said - and particularly slayers. She wondered if the girl he was with in the hallway had been a slayer. A little skinny for a slayer, she thought. Then again she had actually seen and met obese slayers, so an anorexic one wouldn't be that much of a shocker. She shuttered, a vampire who had actually had The Slayer - the original and best - at one point shouldn't have to be satisfied with second pickings. She wondered why Angel hadn't used the ring of Batt-hura himself to just pluck away the slayer from the past.

"Cause it wouldn't be ethical," she mumbled to herself rolling her eyes as she headed for Angel's office. She thought love was anything but ethical, it was weird and crazy. That's why the expression was: all is fair in love and war. She thought of her present situation and considered it her own personal war. Against what? Well, lots of things, the girls that were allowed to call themselves slayers, but were not worthy of the name, the insufferable growing number of slayers, the Watcher's Council and why not, Buffy Summers herself.

Luckily, Angel's office was left unsupervised once he and Harmony had left to show Fred 2 and Wes 2 their offices. No one really thought that someone would have a reason to enter Angel's office. He didn't really keep anything of value there except maybe the elevator to his private apartment. The problem with Wolfram & Hart was that the basis of their security system was concentrated on those trying to infiltrate the building, not someone who was already in it. It was easy for Mina to sneak in the office and just as easy to use Angel's private elevator to go up to his penthouse apartment, now getting into it was a whole different story.

The door to Angel's apartment was, of course, closed and two miniature cameras, not bigger than a button, were monitoring every person that entered or left the apartment. She wondered if a woman entering Angel's apartment was something that happened rarely and if she had to disable the cameras. The truth was she hadn't come prepared for this. She had been a 100 sure that the Ring of Batt-hura was in the archive, that's where it was listed to be in the Watcher's Council's files anyway. At least she had gotten the building right...

Surely the disabling of two cameras would seem much more suspicious than a woman entering Angel's apartment. There was only a slight problem, the fact that the apartment door was closed, but for a slayer that was an easy obstacle to jump. A little hesitant she stepped towards the door and knocked, fully aware that there was no one inside.

"Angel?" she called as her hand grabbed hold of the doorknob and shielding it with her body, so the cameras wouldn't see exactly what she was doing, she gave the door a brutal shove, opening it easily. "Angel?" she asked again entering the apartment. "I need to talk to you about something..." she closed the door behind her and sighed. The damage she had done to the door was visible only from the inside. The locks or the wood the locks had been fixed in had been shattered. She knew that Angel probably didn't have any cameras inside - it was his PRIVATE apartment after all.

"Now, if I were an ancient relic where would I be hiding?" she asked herself as she began looking around the apartment. "Nice," she let out approvingly. The apartment was definitely to her liking. She thought that - maybe - if there had been only one slayer, she could have come to join forces with Angel and she would have received a similar apartment courtesy of Wolfram & Hart. Oh, the possibilities were endless...If there had been only one slayer. Which she was going to make sure would happen. Passing through various rooms she shook her head. Buffy Summers never realized how good she could have had it. She could have had luxury, a good life while still fighting evil, she could have had her beau - Angel or Spike, it didn't really matter, they were both hot - and the privileges that come with it. But no, she had to go and waste it all and ruin it for her heirs as well. "Selfish bitch," she let out as she walked into Angel's bedroom. She knew that Angel would probably realize that she had been there, not only because of the cameras, the broken door, but because of the scent she probably left - humans always leave a scent, a vampire had once told her, but it wasn't like she really needed to be discreet. By the time they figure out who she was and what she was planning to do she would be long gone in her quest to change the past. And they wouldn't be able to stop her anymore.

She touched the walls and felt that - though it seemed like it was just a wall - one of them seemed to made out of iron.

"A safe. Brilliant," she was really not prepared for this. Trying to force it open with raw physical power wasn't going to work and she didn't know enough magic to force it to open either. Well, she could at least try. Rising her hands in the air towards the wall, she said : "Ima dehare!" a powerful invisible force passed through her hands and hit the wall fully. The impact sounded dreadful and she was sure it would alert security. The wall was barely touched. The illusion of the wall was gone and she was now standing in front of a gigantic iron safe. Iron wasn't really good for magic. A tiny curve had formed in the center of the safe. She decided to try again: "Ima dehare!" Boom! "Ima Dehare!" Another boom. "Ima Dehare!" she kept repeating until she was felt spent and slumped down onto Angel's bed. She stood up slightly to see the damage she had done to the safe. A curve had been made, the size of a melon, but it hadn't reached the other side. She let herself fall back down on the bed. Security would arrive soon, she was sure, but could she leave without the relic she had come to find? And then what? Go back to New York and wait for Angel to come and question her on what she was doing in his apartment? No, she had to get the relic now. As she stood up and prepared for another shot, she noticed something sticking out from under Angel's pillow. Curious, she removed the pillow and let out a small scream of happiness when she saw what it was: the ring of Batt-hura! So Angel had been thinking about taking someone out of the past after all! She couldn't believe her luck as she took the ring in her hand. It was rather simple, a golden ring - the size of a frisbee - with various symbols on it and leather strings tied around feathers hanging on one side of it.

She suddenly heard noise outside Angel's bedroom. Security had entered the apartment. She wasn't really looking forward to what she was just going to do, but figured she had no choice. She exited the bedroom and the security people noticed her immediately.

"Freeze! Put your hands up! Now!" one of the them yelled, pointing a gun at her and smiling Mina put her hands up, still clutching the ring in one of her hands. Then suddenly, she made a run for the closest window and threw herself through it, preparing for a free fall. She heard guns going off in the apartment, but she was already falling - to her certain doom if she wasn't about to do what she had in mind. Holding the ring in front of her with both her hands she yelled the words she had learnt inside out from the book of Katurye: "Nema esta, nema deo, nema tempo ecco jero, vero nento, quera lento, en e tempo mera uno!" and hoped she had done everything right. She closed her eyes, fearing to see what was going to happen. The ring in her hands started glowing and she could swear she heard the sound of drums and something that reminded her of Indian chanting then in a bright flash of light she was gone leaving the security people staring down at her wondering where she had done.

_End Part 1_


	3. Gas over flames

**Part 2  
Gas over flames**

_Los Angeles  
Year: 2083  
Location: Wolfram & Hart Demon Hunting Inc._

"What happened?" Angel asked as he entered his apartment and noticed his door had been forced open. "This your doing?" he pointed towards the door with his head.

"No, sir," one of the security men said. "There was a security breach."

"How could have anyone gotten so far up here?" Angel asked taking in the damage done to his private apartment.

"We don't know," another security man said, lifting his shoulders. "It was a woman. Young looking. We didn't think it was strange to see her coming up here - we thought she was the new girl from the science division we were briefed about, we were told that she's...related to you, sir."

"Research division," Angel corrected him absently as he passed further inside the apartment and noticed the broken window.

"We only came running when the booms started," the security man told him.

"Booms? There were booms?" he asked shocked that an intruder had gotten so far, with so much within his supersecure company.

"Luckily we got here in time, sir, she didn't manage to break into the vault," the man explained. "She just scratched the surface a bit and then made a run for it."

Angel entered his bedroom and his eyes went wide when he saw that the illusion of the wall was gone and noticed the curve that had been forced into it. He dropped on the bed and took a deep unnecessary breath of air. The fact that nothing had been taken had been a stroke of good luck. He shuddered at only imagining the kind of objects that could have been stolen and the damage they could have produced. He stared at the safe for another moment deciding instantly to add more security measures to his apartment. He stood up and headed back into the living room. He had totally forgotten about the ring of Batt-hura that he had left outside of the safe the previous night.

"What happened to her?" he asked referring to the intruder.

"She jumped out the window and then disappeared just like that," he snapped his fingers. "We suspect she might be from another dimension. She was human or at least looked like it."

"I want to see the surveillance tape," Angel told them before heading out of the apartment and back down in his office. Fred 2 and Wes 2 were there too. They had scheduled a lunch together, but they had been interrupted by the announcement that Angel's apartment had been broken into.

"Big problems?" Wes 2 asked when he noticed Angel seemed a little troubled.

"A big scare rather," the vampire practically threw himself in his chair. "My safe was almost cracked open by a total stranger."

"The safe...the one you keep all the really dangerous stuff in?" Fred 2 asked remembering one of the stories she had heard from his great-grandparents. Angel nodded wondering briefly how she could have known, then suddenly remembered Wes had been the one who had activated the wall illusion and a few more traps on the inside of the safe.

"Did they catch him?" Wes 2 inquired.

"Her," Angel said looking at the young man. "And no they didn't catch her, she jumped out the window."

"Geez," Fred 2 let out. "A little drastic if you ask me. Jail is better than death."

"Oh, she didn't die, she disappeared. Magic or something like that," Angel explained.

"Really?" Fred 2 asked fascinated. A knock on the door was immediately followed by Harmony entering the room, carrying a disk in one hand.

"I told them you didn't want to be bothered, but they were totally pushy, so I brought it myself, so you wouldn't get mad. It's some security thingie," Harmony said smiling and handed him the disk. Angel inserted it in the laptop on his desk and accessed the recording on it, skipping it forward to the happenings of the last hour. As he browsed through it, the image of a girl finally appeared on the screen. He recognized her instantly as the girl he had bumped into in the hallway. The girl forced the door open without it actually being noticeable on the screen and then disappeared beyond the door, into the apartment. Angel wished for the first time that he would have accepted to put cameras inside his apartment as well, but it was too late for regrets now. He wanted to know who this girl was, what exactly had made her go so far as to break into his private home and how the hell she had gotten inside the building undetected. And of course: where had she vanished to?

"Harm, call Lonny, tell her to come to my office," Angel told the blond vampire and she grimaced.

"You really want me to call her?" Harmony asked hesitant.

"Just do it," he told her with a pleading glare.

"Fine," the vampire stomped away like a spoiled little child.

"Who's Lonny?" Wes 2 asked curious.

"They didn't tell you about her," Angel noted surprised. "I suppose there is a reason they wouldn't want to," he added and then returned to his initial thought thread: "Lonny can maybe tell us who this girl is. If we're lucky."

"Research genius?" Fred 2 asked feeling a little bit threatened by someone who had the same skills as her and was maybe even better than her.

"That'll be the day," Angel smiled. "She's a vampire slayer. She likes to think of herself like the muscle, not the brain. She's...a little hard to explain," he added struggling to find his words. "One of those complicated people."

"Like you?" Wes 2 immediately suggested.

"Yeah, you could definitely say that. Like me," the vampire smiled. Lonny was very much like him and the two teenagers were in for a big surprise.

_Location: The Hollow Crossroads  
Time: Nowhen_

Mina crashed on the arid land with a hard thump bruising her left leg in the process. She quickly got herself together and stood up. She looked around and saw nothing but an endless wasteland. Gray, hard ground followed by even more gray, hard ground. Nothing grew here, nothing lived here now and she suspected nothing ever had. It was a flat, shapeless unending landscape that made her slightly uneasy. She felt a wind that could cut to one's bone blowing hard around her.

"Where the fuck am I!" she yelled and her voice echoed a thousand times before it vanished into the silence again.

"Funny question," an eerie inhuman voice answered her. She turned around and was greeted by the strangest creature: a tall slim figure, its skin translucent, light blue, hairless, covered in veils and holding a long wooden staff in one hand.

"Funny way to answer a funny question," Mina noted observing the creature before her. She hadn't counted on this. She had thought the transition from her plane of existence to the past would be instant, it wouldn't have some sort of intermediate plane. A nexus of time or dimensions or whatever that place represented. "Who are you?"

"And another funny question," the creature answered smiling, showing its small dark blue teeth. He didn't look like a killer. If it was truly a he, of course. At this point, Mina could only guess.

"Yet you're not laughing," she pointed out as she analyzed the staff he was holding, the top of which was covered in feathers, something that made her think of the Batt-Hura ring she was still holding in one hand. She wondered if the creature itself wasn't a traveler from another time, another dimension in search of a way to his past.

"I'm smiling, aren't I?" the creature chuckled. "Besides why is it so important to know who I am? I'm something you'd rather not question on such things. I'm the Hur'dha, the guarding of this place. If you have come here to harm it, I'm afraid I cannot allow you to pass."

"I have no intentions regarding this place, I'm on my way to somewhere else and my intentions for that place should no longer concern you," Mina said smiling and felt that it was one of those moments when she should walk away to punctuate her words, but the problem was she had no place to walk to but more arid land.

"Where are you going?" the creature asked. "You don't even know where you are."

"You're right, I don't, but I plan to find out," Mina said and thought about beating the information out of the creature, but something told her, though it looked very weak and powerless, it could hold its own against her. He was the guardian after all. "So...where am I?"

"These are the hollow crossroads. Here lay the gateways to the things that once were. You came here to look for the past, instead you found me. That means your intentions aren't the best," the creature told her rising his staff towards her.

"So you want a fight, huh?" Mina smirked and rubbed her hands together. "You're choice, Hurddy. To tell the truth I was itching for a good one on one. Haven't had myself a real fight since I bitch slapped this cheerleader tart that actually dared to call herself a slayer a few weeks ago."

"I do believe this is a choice you made," the creature corrected her.

"Mine, yours, whatever, can we just get it over with? I got stuff to take care of," she explained. The creature took a fighting stance and holding his staff in front of himself he charged her. Mina smiled. She believed this was going to be an easy win.

_Los Angeles  
Year: 2083  
Location: Wolfram & Hart Demon Hunting Inc_.

The girl strode inside the office oozing of confidence and looking like she owned the world. She was a teenager, a young black girl, wearing tight pants and combat boots and a shirt that said 'We're the slayers, we're the best, fuck the rest". Fred 2 thought her to be oddly familiar and felt slightly intimidated by her. In her prep school clothes, she felt like she was the icon of everything dull and uninteresting. The girl only shot the twins a short gaze before throwing herself in a chair.

"What's up, boss?" she asked in a rather mocking voice Angel didn't appreciate.

"I need you to identify someone for me," he said ignoring her rude salute.

"What, no hello? How you doin', Lonny? How you been? Everythin' all right? Haven't seen you in months, girl, how the hell are ya?" she rolled her eyes exasperated. "Too much to expect from you, huh? See, this is why I always liked Spike better than you."

"Lonny, this is serious," Angel interrupted her.

"And I'm seriously hurtin' over here. You don't call, you don't write, don't even send me those fruit baskets anymore," Lonny complained.

"This girl's a slayer so it's your turf," Angel continued like the girl hadn't said a word to him.

"And who are two stiffs?" she asked looking over at Wes 2 and Fred 2.

"She broke into my apartment and she wanted to steal something. I need to know what," Angel went on and Wes 2 and Fred 2 stared at each other.

"The girl kinda looks like that skinny chick dad and Spike had the hots for," she looked over Fred 2. "Yup, definitely looks like her."

"She also jumped out of the window and disappeared. I'd like to know where," Angel let her know. Harmony had snicked in and smiled when he saw the two astonished teenagers staring at Lonny and Angel.

"Oh, don't worry, they're always like that," she whispered to them. "They can't have a straight conversation if they're not talking about totally different things. Otherwise it's like a screaming extravaganza."

"Well, go on," Lonny urged Angel to continue with his request.

"Thought you weren't paying attention," Angel smiled.

"You know I always do," she returned the smile. "So how was she? White trash or high class beeotch?"

"Can't really tell. I'd say somewhere in between," Angel answered looking at the screen that showed Mina outside the door of his apartment.

"Who exactly are you?" Wes 2 interfered. The 'dad' comment hadn't escaped him. That could mean she was Gunn's daughter, but how could that possibly be? Unless he had conceived her around the age of 80, but even that was far fetched. He was sure he was mistaken, but her comment and her familiarity only pointed towards that answer.

"See you didn't even introduce me," Lonny looked accusingly over at Angel. The vampire sighed exasperated.

"These are Wesley 2 and Fred 2, Wesley and Fred's great-grandchildren. And this is Alonna Gunn, Gunn's daughter," he made the proper introductions.

"But how!" Wesley asked taken by surprise even though he had suspected the truth.

"Shouldn't she be 50 or 60, like our grandparents?" Fred 2 asked confused.

"Well...uhm, yes. Remember when I said vampire slayer?" the twins nodded. " Vampire slayer."

"She's a vampire!" Wes 2 was shocked.

"Yeah, but a good one," Lonny interfered on her own behalf.

"Uh, like me!" Harmony pitched in cheerfully.

"That was a big help, Harm," Lonny told the vampire rolling her eyes.

"As you can see she was turned during the most difficult period of her life - the teenage years and I'm afraid she hasn't been able to get over it," Angel said and Lonny stuck her tongue out at him. The vampire shook his head and turned the laptop screen towards the slayer: "This is the girl I was talking about. Do you know her?"

Lonny looked at the picture carefully and then smirked:

"Oh, her. Sure, I know her, not personally or anything... I've seen her picture on the SA site. She's been the East Coast slayer of the month since she was 14. Overachiever," she mumbled as she pushed the laptop back to Angel.

"SA site?" Wes 2 asked confused.

"Slayers Associated website," his sister explained. Most of the site's visitors were girls who either hoped that they would become slayers someday or girls who were already slayers. Fred 2, though she didn't admit it, had wanted, like all little girls, to become a slayer at one point in her life and that's when she had frequently visited the site in question. During her teenage years though she came to understand that it wasn't her destiny and she was happy about it. A job at Wolfram & Hart seemed much more interesting than one in the SA.

"Why would a goody-goody two- shoes slayer like her try to steal something from you? Doesn't like everyone know you always helped slayers out?" Harmony seemed perplexed and then added: "Sometimes more than you had to. Talk about a friendly hand..."

"Hey! I heard that!" Angel told Harmony giving her a cross look. The blond vampire only smiled at his comment as if she knew better. "What's her name?" he asked turning towards Lonny.

"M something...Mi...na. Mina, that's it. Don't remember the last name, but you can check the site. As much as I remember, this girl was a regular freak, one of 'em slayer idealists. Thinks she's the best there is, bullshit like that," Lonny told them. "One day reality is gonna give her one hell of a beating..."

_Location: The Hollow Crossroads  
Time: Nowhen_

With her nose bleeding, but smiling triumphantly, Mina stood above the creature she had beaten to a bloody pulp. Her fists were covered in its blue blood and she smiled wickedly. Nothing was going to stand in her way. The creature's staff, floated next to him, twirling around in a small circle. She reached out for it and grabbed it in her right hand. The ring of Batt-Hura was laying disregarded somewhere on the ground. After analyzing the staff for a few moments, she broke it in two over her knee and threw it over the corpse of the creature. She took in a deep breath and picking up the ring of Batt- Hura she held it up above her head.

"Nema esta, nema deo, nema tempo ecco jero, vero nento, quera lento, en e tempo mera uno!" she yelled and there was no echo this time. A portal tore itself into the fabric of time and Mina stepped through it like a true victor.

After the portal closed behind her, the corpse of the guardian and his broken staff disappeared. The creature reappeared shortly after, unharmed and untouched, his staff intact.

"You forget, Mina Parker," he said smiling. "There is no time here and your little struggle didn't happen or ever will because you were never here. Not in time, not in place."

_Location: Sunnydale  
Year: 2003_

Mina covered her face as she crashed straight into the 'Welcome to Sunnydale" sign. Surprisingly, though the impact had been brutal, she had walked away from it unharmed. She smiled, the time travel must have made her even more powerful. That or the ring of Batt-Hura itself. As she stared at the welcome sign, she burst into a hysterical laughter.

"I did it! I actually did it!" she screamed happily jumping around like a giddy child. Looking at the city beyond the sign she simply smiled. It seemed deserted, Sunnydale was living its last days. "Watch out, Buffy Summers! You think you've seen your worst nightmare, but you haven't seen anything yet!"

In the Summers home, the slayer jolted awake as if shook up by a bad premonition. Something was coming. She laughed at herself, of course something was coming, the fight with the prime evil! A battle unlike any other she had ever fought! She tried to calm herself down, but a little voice inside her head still shot off warning signals. There's something else out there, Buffy and it wants a fight.

_Location: Africa  
Time: 2083  
A village in the replanted Congo jungles_

He stirred awake. It was day. Something had woken him up and it hadn't been the crazy sounds of nature this time, but something deep within his own mind. Something was wrong or was about to go wrong. He stood up and rubbed his eyes. He couldn't very well go outside in daylight. He pulled his pants on and rummaged through his bag until he found what he had been looking for. The amulet that had been the beginning of all his troubles.

"Stop lying to yourself, mate," he told himself. "You know very well where all your troubles started. And she happened to be a lot prettier than that bloody amulet."

Something caught his attention, the amulet had begun glowing in his hands. He wondered what it could mean.

"Nothing good, that's for sure," he mumbled to himself as he threw the amulet back in his bag. When he turned to pick up his shirt he was startled by the sudden appearance of a creature in his small hut. It was the guardian of the Hollow Crossroads. "How the bloody hell did you get in here?"

"I am the guardian of the crossroads, Hur'dha. A girl has crossed over time, into the past, looking to undo the good a great woman has once done. You must go after her, you and the one with the angelic face..." the creature began telling him, but Spike interrupted him:

"Hold on, can we just leave the big poofer out? I'm all for saving the day, even if you look a little strange, mate, but let's leave him out of it, shall we?"

"You and the one with the angelic face," the creature's eyes began to glow yellow. Spike pulled back, a bit taken aback. "Will go after her, bring her back, make sure she will not touch a living soul."

"How about a dead soul?" he asked and suddenly felt like he was choking. The amulet was floating over the bag, glowing brighter than before. He had a burning feeling in his gut. "Fine! I'll do what you want, just leave the bloody amulet alone!" But he suddenly found that he was alone and the amulet had fallen to the floor, void of any glow and the burning feeling had disappeared. "Okay, what just happened?" he asked the empty hut confused.

_End Part 2_


	4. 1st degree burn

**Part 3  
1st degree burn**

_Los Angeles  
Year: 2083  
Location: Wolfram & Hart Demon Hunting Inc._

Angel stared at the thick file in front of him with a frown on his face. Lonny stood opposite him at his desk. It was long after midnight, but employees were still restlessly roaming the corridors of Wolfram & Hart solving late emergencies or filling endless paperwork on closed cases. If there was one thing of the old company Angel had insisted on keeping that was maintaining a detailed archive - he wanted every case documented properly for future similar situations. Continuing to stare at the file in front of him, he went through the day's events: the arrival of Fred 2 and Wes 2, the break in, the mysterious slayer, the late lunch with the twins, going through several cases with his staff, retiring to his apartment and having a long chat about old times with Wes 2 and Fred 2 over ordered pizza and tacos and of course Lonny's reappearance about an hour before. Thinking of the twins, he imagined that they must be very bored in his apartment by themselves and wished he had at least told them where the TV was.

"Well?" Lonny asked as she looked at him victoriously with her arms crossed over her chest.

"Not what I expected," he interrupted his thread of thoughts.

"Pretty clean," she smirked. "But not everythin's in that file."

"There's more?" he asked rising his eyebrows in surprise.

"She's got what I'd call an attitude problem," she said and Angel smiled.

"Attitude problem, huh?" he said in a mocking tone. Lonny gave him a dirty look and Angel's smile faded, knowing that if he teased her too much she could very well just stand up and leave without another word said. She had done it before. The truth was the only reason she helped Wolfram & Hart was her father - the only person who had ever been able to keep her under control, before and after she became a vampire.

"Yeah. The file...," she gestured towards the papers in front of him. "It's like her...her grade book. The SA only keeps accounts of the missions a slayer was assigned to or any solo missions she happened to stumble upon. Whatever they do in their free time, it ain't any of their business."

"Nothing's written down," he realized.

"Bingo, Angelito," she leaned over the desk. "That's why I was so freakin' late. I had to chat with a few east coasters, get 'em to spill the dirt on little miss perfection."

"And you got it?" he inquired.

"A bag full of it," she smiled as she noisily dropped back in her chair. Angel passed his fingers over the glossy picture of Mina Parker clipped on the first page of the file.

"What are you waiting for?" he asked looking up at her.

"For you to stop drooling for that bitch's picture," she smiled.

"You know I'm really beginning to think you're the one who began spreading all those nasty rumors about me," he said exasperated.

"Would you mind?" she asked innocently.

"I could do without all the insinuations and all knowing looks," he admitted rising his shoulders. He had actually grown used to it as no one ever made a direct accusation that might have truly offended him. "Now shoot."

"Fights in school and plenty of 'em. If she was in a highschool from a rough New York neighborhood, I'd be all for it, but get this, she attends an upper Manhattan prep school. That's like picking a fight in a convent," she smirked. "She seems to have a big problem with other slayers. The weaker sort, you know, the fat ones, the geeky ones, the flashy ones...She's what the slayers call 'the kindred'."

"What?" he asked closing the file and putting it aside.

"The kindred. The slayers that think they're above the others, the lawful descends of the slayer line. Bullshit like that," she shrugged. "The elite's usually part of the kindred. Wanna take a wild guess why?"

"Well, she certainly built up a nice file. I don't understand why someone capable of doing so much good, would lower herself to something as demeaning as discrimination between her own kind. Or why she'd want to steal anything from me. She could've asked," he pointed out.

"Not if it wasn't for a good cause," she chuckled. "Besides yours isn't the only place she broke into," she pulled a small piece of folded paper from her pocket and threw it in front of him. He unfolded it carefully and saw the article he had previously not noticed on the front page of the newspaper laying on Harmony's desk: 'Book of Katurye stolen! The first ever recorded theft in the New York Museum of Unnatural History'.

"And you're sure this is her hand?" he asked as he quickly read the article depicting the mysterious disappearance of the book.

"Not a 100 sure, but I checked the recordings of the museum, she was there and she hasn't been seen since," she explained.

"Where did you get all this?" he asked gesturing towards the file, the article and Lonny herself.

"I have my sources," she said smiling secretly.

"You didn't steal anything, did you?" he knew her too well.

"Why? Are you going to hire me an attorney?" she teased him.

"Lonny," he was being serious. The book of Katurye and the Museums of Unnatural history were under the jurisdiction of the SA and the SA didn't exactly look fondly upon her. She was an anomaly in the slayer chain. A slayer turned vampire, but not turned evil - well not more evil than she had been before her turning. She was in many ways tolerated, admitted at the SA meetings, called when emergencies appeared, but she wasn't trusted, honored or allowed any sort of contact to their archives, that's why the presence of Mina Parker's file in his office seemed very suspicious.

"I asked someone to take it out for me," she lied, knowing Angel would never really believe that, but would accept this answer knowing she would not give him another.

"And the tapes you saw?" he asked as he folded the article back into a small rectangle.

"I put Blaze up to it," she admitted. Blaze was something of a computer genius from the science division that had had a soft spot for Lonny ever since he had come to work for Wolfram & Hart.

"How many times do I have to tell you..." he began, but Lonny interrupted him laughing:

"Don't play dirty with the SA!" Wolfram & Hart was looked at suspiciously by the SA as well, even if it was run by a legendary figure in slayer history. Watchers, the real ones, Angel thought shaking his head, were never going to trust him, but they often needed to work hand to hand with them and that's why he preferred to be in good relations with them. Bad relations with the SA meant every slayer on the planet turning their backs on you and no one wanted that.

"I hope Blaze didn't leave a trail leading back to us, cause I'm sure you used the company mainframe," he said smiling.

"Oh, c'mon, isn't Blaze the computer ubbergeek?" she asked rolling her eyes. "That's why you hired him in the first place."

"Yeah, but he does have a gift of being very distracted around you," he pointed out.

"Well, yeah...," that was the truth and she couldn't find any arguments against it. "You're not in trouble unless that red bi-uh-witch's protégé's around, but last I heard she's somewhere in India with her 'mommy'."

"What did I tell you Lonny?" he asked tired, staring at her hard. It was a question he often repeated around her.

"You told me so many things..." she began, but stopped when she saw Angel continued to hold her gaze. "Okay, let me think about it. Bla, bla, bla, don't talk trash about the redhead witch from Sunnydale. Hey, is it true she banged one of the new slayers while she was still a potential?"

"Lonny, Willow was and continues to be a very good friend of mine and I don't..." he started explaining for the millionth time, but as always, impatient, Lonny interrupted him:

"Is it true that she banged Doofy and Doofus' great-grandma when you were working on a case together?"

"Lonny!" he sank in his chair, exasperated. Willow, through who knows what kind of magic had kept herself alive and young over the decades, but her great power had made her the target of many rumors and had turned her into a bit of a monarch of the witches and because of it she was feared by many. The power had changed her a bit even in Angel's eyes. As for her protégé, she was a darling Canadian 16 year old - Willow had introduced her to him, assuring her that she would always find a helping hand in Angel - she was a computer genius and contrary to rumors she was nothing but a surrogate daughter to Willow. Even if in appearance the witch still looked like a 20-something year old, her soul had grown old and for reasons untold, she had never had children of her own.

"I'll take the blame entirely, okay?" she said on a peaceful note. "We all know they'd believe that. Sure, they'd probably insist you give me the boot afterwards, but..."

"I'd say I would and wouldn't," he said smiling. "What was in the book of Katurye?"

"Spells, the big guns, but the conditioned sort. All pretty much needed a jumpstarter," she explained. "Something she probably wanted to get from your secret safe."

"Anything she might have been extremely interested in?" he asked rising an eyebrow.

"Several actually. An omnipotence spell drew my attention till I realized she'd grow tentacles and though the omnipotence only lasted for a couple of days, the tentacles were permanent," she sighed. "This would be a lot easier if we'd know what she wanted from the safe."

"But unfortunately, we don't," Angel looked at the file and wondered what was in Mina's mind at that moment.

_Location: Sunnydale  
Year: 2003_

Mina Parker was standing in front of the door of the Summers home with a stupid smile on her face. Sunnydale was deserted, the streets empty, there was no one in sight, only a few curious bringers had followed her and tried to take her down, but they didn't stand a chance against her. She was sure, soon the Prime Evil himself would hear of her and it tickled her ego just a bit. She rang at the door and a rather surprised goofy looking guy opened the door. Before she had a chance to speak, he made a quick step towards her and touched her hand.

"Thank god," he let out relieved. "For a moment there I thought you were...who are you?"

"I'm a potential," she said smiling.

"What?" he asked a little surprised. "I thought all the..."

"I guess I'm a little late. My watcher got butchered in Finland, I barely got out," she explained. On her way to the house she had had enough time to think of a plausible story. She couldn't simply burst in the house and take out the slayer though that plan had tempted her greatly, but unfortunately for Buffy she recognized the thin line between doable and impossible. A direct attack involved the threat of all those potentials, the witch and a vampire whom she assumed at this point was Spike, though if she knew her slayer history well, Angel was in Sunnydale about now too.

"Okay, then..." he stepped aside and putting on his best host smile he invited her in and continued: "I'm Andrew, I'm one of the slayerettes, the Scoobies. I'm sure you heard of us, we're the slayer's inner circle. We help with the baddies. She would've died so many times without us..."

"The inner circle," Mina smiled maliciously. "So where is she? The slayer? I was kinda excited about meeting her."

"Well...you'll have to wait till morning," Andrew said. "She's charging up her superpowers. She had a big fight. It took a lot out of her."

"The priest," she realized, but her voice had been almost a whisper so Andrew didn't hear what she had said.

"Did you just say something?" he asked and looked at her, seeming a little dizzy to her. He must have been sleeping, she told herself as she shook her head in sign of no and followed him into the living room. "I don't know where you'll sleep. I mean, Buffy didn't have where to sleep either and she's..."

"Where is she?" she could easily guess, but she loved making people feel uncomfortable.

"She's sleeping in the basement," he quickly said.

"Alone? The poor thing," she smiled again. She wanted to laugh badly, but didn't allow herself the pleasure. "By the way, my name is Mina. Mina Parker."

"Okay, so Mina...uhm, I can give you my pillow if you want," he said a little half-heartedly.

"You will? That's so nice of you," she said all smiles.

"Just have my...whole sleeping... place, I'll just sleep on the...uhm table or something," he said pointing towards his previous sleeping place, sighing defeated. Thanking him again, Mina made her way through the sleeping potential slayers and occupied Andrew's place. Laying her head on the pillow, she smiled, this time, a real satisfied grin. If anyone had seen her then, they would have thought she had just lived the happiest day of her life. And in many ways they would have been right. This had been an almost perfect day.

_Los Angeles  
Year: 2083  
Location: Wolfram & Hart Demon Hunting Inc._

He opened the door to his apartment slowly, holding Mina's file under one arm. The door had been replaced by the maintenance people while he had still been out to lunch. The window Mina had thrown herself through was intact as well and his safe, he assumed - he hadn't entered his bedroom since discovering the break-in - seemed like a normal wall again. He smiled when he saw the twins had fallen asleep on the couch while waiting for him. Fred 2's head had fallen on her brother's shoulder and his head over hers. Wes 2 was snoring slowly with his mouth open, something that didn't seem to bother his sister, a sign that she was probably used to it. Angel thought about waking them up, but then decided against it.

He entered his bedroom and grabbed a spare pillow and cover from a closet. He put the pillow on the couch and gently pushed Wes 2 down on it while making sure Fred 2 didn't fall. Then he took Fred 2 in his arms and carried her to his bedroom and put her to rest in his bed. He was probably not going to sleep all night anyway. He was going to study Mina's file in detail. Maybe something - a case perhaps - had put some wild idea into her mind. As he fluffed Fred 2's pillow and tucked her in, he had an odd feeling of deja-vu. What was it that he had forgotten? While he had fluffed his pillow the previous night, right before falling asleep, what had he told himself? He reached under the pillow and it suddenly hit him. He had told himself not to forget to put back in the safe the ring of Batt-hura. He searched for it in the bed - making sure he wouldn't wake Fred 2, on the floor, under the bed, anywhere in the room where it might have landed during Mina's mystic attack on the safe, but it was no use. It was gone.

"What...are...you doing?" Fred 2 asked sleepily, with her eyes half-open seeing him crawling under the bed for the second time.

"I...uhm, lost something," he said bumping his head on the edge of the bed startled by her voice. "Go back to sleep."

"You...sure, you-you don't want me to help?" she asked closing her eyes.

"Sleep," he smiled and caressed her hair gently before going back to searching for the ring. A half an hour later he hadn't found anything. The ring was gone. It could only mean two things: the clean-up crew had swept his bedroom too and the ring was either in their possession or had been returned to the safe or Mina had it. One of these three possibilities could be easily crossed out: the ring couldn't have been returned to the safe without his presence, unless of course it would have been forced open which at this point - to simply return something to the safe - would have been ridiculous. But what if Mina had been after the ring? What for? What if she simply took it because she couldn't reach the desired object and thought that the ring was interesting? He cursed himself for being so stupid to take out the ring in the first place. In a moment of weakness and loneliness he had removed it from the safe and actually considered using it to go into the past. Maybe not necessarily to remove a person from it, but just to live another day with his old friends by his side. Gunn, Wes, Fred, Lorne, Cordy... Maybe for a moment to skip back in time to when his son was still a baby or a teenager or at any point of Connor's life. Or even Sunnydale...anywhere but there. When he was alone at night - alone in his bed - he was often filled with a blind desperation and melancholy he couldn't chase away... He realized full well he had gone too far the previous night and had endangered time itself because of it. And now the ring was probably in the hands of a slayer up to no good. He had to find out if Mina had the ring of Batt-hura and if it had been the item she had searched for.

Exiting his bedroom, he pulled out his cellphone and dialed the number of the maintenance division.

"Hello?" a cheerful female voice answered him.

"Hi, it's Angel, can I talk to someone who was assigned to the clean-up job in my apartment this morning?" he asked the woman.

"One moment please," she put the phone down and Angel had to hold his cell a certain distance away from his ear to escape the dreadful screaming of the woman as she yelled at someone in the room to wake up because the boss wanted to talk to him.

"Hello?" a tired, somewhat scared man picked up the phone. "Mr. Angel? I was in the crew that cleaned-up your apartment this morning."

"Did anyone find a mystical ring in my bedroom?" he asked directly.

"No, sir," he said. "We didn't find anything out of place, anything suspicious looking. I'm absolutely sure. We would've reported it otherwise."

"Thank you," he hung up and started dialing the number of the research division. A tired, sleepy voice answered him:

"Wolfram and," the person yawned. "..Hart, research division. How may I help you?"

"This is Angel. I need you to cross- reference something for me," he said looking out the recently replaced window.

"Mr. Angel, sir. I'm sorry I..." he suddenly seemed very much awake.

"It's all right," he assured him. It was past 1 AM after all.

"What do you need cross-referenced?" he asked. Angel could hear him searching for a pen and paper over the phone.

"The book of Katurye and the items stored in my private apartment safe," the vampire told him.

"Sir, the book of Katurye is owned by the SA. They have the only two copies. One, if you count the one stolen yesterday," he explained.

"So it can't be done?" Angel asked impatient.

"I didn't say that...But the SA has the legal rights to the book so before using it you should talk to the representatives of the Association or check in with our legal department..." he began, but Angel interrupted him:

"Screw the legal stuff. I need this done NOW," he said. "Call as soon as you're finished."

"I'll get right on it, sir," he assured him before hanging up

_Los Angeles  
Year: 2083  
Location: An airplane over the Atlantic Ocean  
Sub-location: The luggage compartment_

"Bloody hell!" Spike let out shoving aside a large suitcase that had fallen on his head for the millionth time since he had embarked on the plane. Taking a smoke from his cigar, he let out an exasperate sigh. "You must go to her, you and the one with the angelic face," he imitated the cryptic voice of the Hur'dha. "Forgot to mention the horrifying trip to LA," he mumbled to himself. "If he can zap himself anywhere, he could've at least given me a free ride."

He heard a faint sound behind him and looked back to see his bag was glowing. It was the amulet, but strangely enough it didn't hurt if the old man, the Hur'dha, wasn't there, but it still glowed. Why? Spike could only guess. It hadn't done this before. Ever - except on the day when Sunnydale fell. He opened his bag and pulled the amulet out. He stared at it for a few long moments and for a quarter of a second it seemed to fade out of reality. And for that same quarter of a second his body seemed to burn. He collapsed to the floor in pain. He threw the amulet back in the bag and noticed that his hand had an actual burn on it. He slowly grew angry.

"Who the hell is this bitch and what the bloody hell does she think she's doing messing with time! My time!" he yelled, but only the growl of a dog in a cage answered him.

_Los Angeles  
Year: 2083  
Location: Wolfram & Hart Demon Hunting Inc._

When his cellphone rang, it was well after 3 AM. Angel jolted awake in the armchair he had sat down in while going over Mina's file.

"Angel," he answered chasing away any remains of sleepiness he had left.

"I got the results of that cross- reference you wanted, sir," the guy from the research division told him. "You want me to send them up to your apartment?"

"No, just shoot," the vampire told him.

"There are four items from your safe that correspond to spells in the book of Katurye. The gemstone of Amhar is used on a seer spell, it gives a sorcerer the power to see into the minds of...let's say a quarter of the population of the northern hemisphere. The pyramid of Nurydn is used for an interdimensional transportation spell, mostly hell dimensions. The ring of Batt-hura is used for time travel into the past. And the last are the Muryan rubies that can be used to retrieve a...Kehjolon demon from a dimensional loop hole."

"Tell me, what are the chances that the one thing the girl that broke into my apartment wanted was outside the safe at the time she was in my bedroom?" he asked both amused and horrified by the irony of the situation.

"Do you want an exact probability on that, sir?" the man on the other end of the line asked.

"No, but thank you," he hung up. This was turning out to be one of his not so lucky days. The one thing that seemed to present any interest to the slayer seemed to be the ring of Batt- Hura, but then again, who knew? Maybe she had a boyfriend who was half way around the globe and inside whose mind she wanted to see or she wanted to kill off some Kehjolon demon...How could he tell at this point? He needed more information. What he didn't know was that the information he needed was already on its way, aboard an airplane that was minutes away from landing in LA.

_End Part 3_


	5. 2nd degree burn

**Part 4  
2nd degree burn**

_Los Angeles  
Year: 2083  
Location: Paco's Taco Palace_

"Did you find what you were looking for?" Fred 2 asked a distracted Angel as she stared a little disgusted at her brother who had shoved half a taco in his mouth and now seemed ecstatic.

"No, I think it was stolen yesterday by that slayer...Mina," he answered looking around the dinner, seeming a little edgy.

"Don't worry," Fred 2 misinterpreted his nervous glares. "See," she pointed towards a big sign on the wall behind them that read "Paco's Taco Palace now VAMPIRE FRIENDLY! No more nasty burns. Necro-tinted windows. Ask for our blood cocktails."

"Oh... god... this is... SO good," Wes 2 said in between bites.

"You know, I really think the only time he loses his British accent is when he eats," Fred 2 smiled and her brother gave her a nasty look, but didn't bother to stop eating to give her a worthy reply. "Was it something dangerous?"

"Not dangerous in a weapon-of- mass-destruction kind of dangerous, but in a I-can-change-time-if-I-want-to kind of dangerous," Angel said rubbing his face. He was tired. He hadn't been able to sleep all night or if he had it had been that sort of agitated half-sleep that did more damage than good.

"Change time?" Fred 2 was suddenly very attentive, not minding her brother's eating anymore. "A magical item that can change time..."

"A magical item that can transport you into the past," he corrected her.

"Wow," she was impressed. Wes 2 stopped eating and stared at Angel with his eyes wide. "And that's what you were looking for last night?" the vampire nodded. "But what was it doing outside?"

"Did you use it recently?" Wes 2 asked with his mouth full.

"No, I...uhm...," he didn't want to tell them the truth. Mainly because it made him look bad - irresponsible even - and he didn't want them to see him in that light, he wanted to live up to all their expectations like they were living up to his. "We were supposed to use it in a...a minor spell. Today."

"You think she might use it?" Fred 2 asked while her twin brother wiped his mouth with a napkin, suddenly interested in their conversation as well.

"I don't know. That's what's been eating me," Angel said letting out an unnecessary sigh. There was a sudden commotion in the dinner and everyone's heads turned towards the entrance. The twins and the vampire noticed it a bit later than the rest - a group of seven people were heading straight for their table. Six of them were girls lead by a young man in a tweed costume who had a very smug look on his face. As they neared them, Fred 2 noticed Lonny was among the girls and she didn't seem very pleased to be there. The young man stopped in front of their table and smiled victoriously at Angel:

"I assume you know why I'm here," he glared at the twins as he addressed Angel.

"Do I get three guesses?" the vampire acted calmly, but Wes 2 noticed his hand clutching his knee behind the table.

"Well, if you want to make a scene...," the man seemed to have actually hoped for one. "In the name of the West Coast American Slayer Association, I, Rupert MacAlistair-Giles II, place you under arrest for theft, illegal possession of private SA documents and illegal use of material found under the SA jurisdiction."

"You wanna take a wild guess who isn't in India anymore?" Lonny asked giving him a resigned look.

_Los Angeles  
Year: 2083  
Location: Wolfram & Hart Demon Hunting Inc._

He strolled into the building like it was the most natural thing in the world, though deep inside he knew it wasn't. The staff of Wolfram & Hart seemed to freeze whenever their eyes happened to stumble upon him. Of course everyone knew him! He had worked there for over fifty years! He was a damn legend! Probably why the security people had let him enter without asking questions. At one point he had been something of a second boss to some of them. Whenever Angel had a fit, a depression - like when Fred and Wes had decided to leave Wolfram & Hart - he was the one who had replaced him until he returned. At a particularly low point even by Angel's own standards he had offered Spike the job permanently, but he had refused it and now he was glad he did. Eternity fighting evil just seemed a little too dull for him.

He took the elevator up to the floor where Angel's office was. The truth was he and Angel hadn't really parted on friendly terms. He grimaced thinking back to the reason he had left in the first place. Women, it always had to be about women... He figured that if it hadn't been for women they could've gotten along, being the only two souled vampires and all, but no...first there had been Dru, then Buffy and then of course another slayer... He snapped out of his thoughts when the doors slid open. He walked out of the elevator and headed straight for the office. When he was about to pass beyond the door to Angel's office, he was stopped by someone clearing his throat. He looked back and came face to face with Harmony.

"Harm?" he asked hesitantly. "Last time I saw you, you were wearing all black, had your nose pierced and were swearing you'd leave this place."

She kicked him in the leg hard making him bend over in pain.

"Au!" he looked up at her angrily. "What'd you do that for?"

"I was possessed by a freakin' goth, you jerk!" she said feeling hurt even after more than thirty years. "And you were sooooo busy you didn't even notice."

"Really?" he seemed surprised. But if he thought about it hard enough he hadn't noticed a lot of things back then. He had been too busy fighting with Angel.

"Do you have any idea how long it took me to get that color out of my hair?" she asked, shivering at the memory. Suddenly seeming to realize the strangeness of the fact that he was there, she added: "What are you doing here?"

"Here to see the big boss about a little crisis," he said smiling.

"Oh," Harmony looked away avoiding a proper reply.

"Oh? Well, call him, break out the red carpet, turn on the Angel-signal, get the cape crusader out here!" he said, he was in a particularly good mood. He assumed it was because he was back there. He had to admit the place held a lot of good memories. A lot of bad ones too, but the truth was the good ones always came before the bad.

"I can't," Harmony said going back behind her desk.

"And why is that, Harm?" he asked getting a tad impatient.

"He...," she continued to avoid his look. "He was arrested, okay?"

"Arrested!" he yelled exasperated. "For what? By who?"

"The SA. There was this whole...incident," Harmony explained.

_Los Angeles  
Year: 2083  
Location: The LA Slayer Association HQ_

Angel was seated in a chair at one end of the table as the young man paced in front of him with a satisfied grin playing on his face. At the other end of the table, five older men observed them with cold icy glares and emotionless faces. In a chair next to Angel, Lonny had taken a very casual position and looked at them defiantly. In the back, on two chairs right next to the wall, Fred 2 and Wes 2 seemed nervous to be there, but at the same time Angel noticed a spark of curiosity in their eyes. Somewhere between Angel and the five men, sitting at the large table there was a young redhead that constantly fidgeted and really seemed like she didn't want to be there.

"So...you deny all charges?" the young man asked, acting like he wanted the vampire to put up a fight.

"No...not exactly," Angel wasn't very precise.

"A yes or no will do just fine," one of the older men spoke up in a calm rational voice.

"There were certain circumstances you have to understand," Angel found himself wishing Gunn was at his side again. He had always had a way with twisting the law in their favor and getting him out of trouble especially with the SA. Unfortunately, now that he was alone, Angel didn't stand much of a chance. He had called the legal department asking for their top lawyer, but they had argued with him - they said it would only make him look guilty if a legal shark was talking in his name. They said the best way to approach an organization like the SA was to be as honest as he could afford to be, give them the deer in headlights routine and hope for the best. Looking over at the five men, Angel thought to himself he wasn't doing so well.

"Ah, yes, Mina Parker," the young man calling himself Rupert MacAlistair-Giles II smiled again. "The leader of the East Coast elite. You seriously expect us to believe she stole the book of Katurye? And that she broke into your private apartment?"

"I can show you the surveillance tape, I told you," Angel repeated for what seemed to be the millionth time.

"Suppose you can produce this tape - though we all know tapes can be manipulated both mystically and technologically and Wolfram & Hart certainly has the resources for it - who says Mina intended to steal something that belonged to you? Maybe she wanted to take back something she thought didn't belong to you," Rupert twisted the words in his favor.

"Wouldn't she have asked for it first?" Fred 2 asked rising her hand timidly from the back of the room. "I mean...why go ahead and steal it when there's a possibility that Angel would return the...uhm...item willingly?"

"Who says she didn't? All we have is the word of this...of this...vampire," Rupert said appearing disgusted by the very word.

"Mr. Giles, contain yourself," one of the old men warned him. The young man had a long record of hate crimes against vampires which wasn't looked fondly upon by the SA, though many of the high ranking watchers simply called him overzealous and an incurable enthusiast.

"Has Ms Parker been located?" another one of the older men spoke.

"She left the country for a week," Rupert informed them. "She's in France."

"Have you located her?" the same man asked.

"Not yet, but it won't take much longer I assure you. I have a few people working on it as we speak," Rupert said glaring at Angel, looking for some sort of reaction to his words. The vampire simply smiled amused, they could turn France upside down and still not find Mina Parker. "Moving on to other charges brought against him. Ms. Devain, is it true that you registered a breach into our system last night?"

"Yes...," the young redhead said hesitantly.

"And certain information was stolen from the electronic archives?" Rupert continued. The girl nodded. "Can you tell us exactly what?"

"The surveillance tapes from the Unnatural Museum of History, details about the book of Katurye, its index, objects needed in the incantations...things like that," the girl answered him.

"Why the sudden interest in the book of Katurye?" Rupert turned back to Angel. "You weren't perchance the one who took it from the museum..."

"That's ridiculous!" Wes 2 protested. "Why would he be looking for the index if he had the book?"

"But the question still remains," one of the older men intervened: "Why did you need the information about the book? And why didn't you simply ask for it?"

"It was late, I didn't want to bother you with something so insignificant. I didn't know you'd make such a big deal out of it," Angel said calmly.

"A security breach is always a big deal," one of the older men stared at him coldly. "What did you need the information for?"

"I needed to know what she wanted to take from my safe," Angel explained. "The people from my research department needed the information for a cross-referencing."

"And...," Rupert began, but was interrupted by the doors of the conference room swinging open and a very familiar figure walking casually inside. The older men immediately stood up when she entered the room and bowed their heads respectively. Rupert did the same and Fred 2 and Wes 2 got up from their chairs awkwardly, not really knowing who the woman was or why they should stand up in her presence. The woman smiled warmly at them before turning towards Angel.

"Every time I see you, you're always in trouble," she said cheerfully and leaned down and gave him a small quick kiss on the lips. The old men stared at her a little shocked while Rupert shook his head exasperated.

"Hello to you too Willow," Angel smiled. "How's life?"

"Bureaucratically impossible to live in. Can you believe they wouldn't let me enter India because of that little spell I made a few years ago in Calcutta?" she shook her head. "They threatened to put me in jail. Like a jail could hold me," her eyes shone dangerously. "But I couldn't risk them imprisoning Danielle too, so I turned the plane around."

"I'm sorry, your grace, but we were in the middle of a..." Rupert interrupted her.

"Rupert, you don't interrupt two old friends that are talking, especially if they haven't seen each other in a long long time," she looked at him with superiority. Lonny, who had been uncharacteristically quiet the whole time gave him a smug look. The truth was she felt a little guilty that Angel had been arrested by the SA and felt she would only do more damage if she spoke. She had a gift of pissing off authorities of any kind.

"But..." Rupert began and Willow chuckled amused.

"Okay, what is all this about?" she gestured around the conference room.

"Your friend," Rupert pressed every word. "Broke into our electronic archive and..."

"Hacking? That's it?" the witch laughed. "Don't you think you have better things to take care of then busting his ass about a little hacking job? Heck, he probably has better things to take care of, being the boss of a huge demon hunting company and all," she looked back at the old men and the light in her eyes had changed drastically as she spoke: "Actually I know you have better things to take care of as we speak: a boy is being attacked by a vicious horde of Morgai demons in South-East LA, a slayer is being beaten to death and needs some serious backup in a warehouse just outside the city, a family has been taken hostage by a large group of vampires, two highschool girls have accidentally stumbled upon a nest of vampires and...," she turned towards Angel and whispered in his ear so only he could hear: "Somewhere else in time Mina Parker is starting to stir up trouble."

"Is...is that true?" Rupert stuttered as three of the old men got up hurriedly and without another word left the room to check out the potential situations.

"You've been here for three years, have you learnt nothing, little watcher?" Willow asked the young man who seemed insulted by her words. "How from Giles' blood someone like you could be born, I'll never know," she said serious for a moment before turning back to the old men, smiling again. "Well?"

"It might be an insignificant detail, but we all know even a tiny pebble can make the difference between chaos and order," one of the two old men told her.

"Wise words, Ronald, and normally I would applaud you for them, but today I have a different agenda," waving her hand around the room, the two old men and Rupert fell to the floor, unconscious. Fred 2 and Wes 2 observed her with an amount of fear and admiration in their eyes. "Well, that should give you enough time."

"Time for what?" Angel asked confused.

"To get back to your office. You have a serious situation to deal with," Willow said.

"What's more serious then winding up in one of those vampire jails Lonny grimaced. The fact that people knew about vampires also implied that they could build jails capable of holding them whenever they thought a crime they committed wasn't serious enough to be punished by death. Of course it happened rarely, but it happened. Hadn't a vampire from New York pulled the biggest insurance fraud of the last decade?

"Much more important," Willow stated meeting the girl's eyes. "We're talking about time manipulation, the nastiest sort of thing that could happen and I'm afraid it's rather personal this time."

"What do you mean?" Angel asked instantly.

"You'll see," the witch seemed to have decided to not tell him more than she had already said. She looked back at Fred 2 and Wes 2 and a sort of strange smile played on her lips. "They're..."

"Fred was our great-grandmother," Fred 2 answered her question before she had a chance to phrase it.

"You look a lot like them," Willow told them before turning her head towards the young redhead sitting at the table that had followed their conversation feeling like she was intruding. "We have to leave."

"But we just got back," Danielle Devain reminded her.

"How does...Rio de Janeiro sound?" Willow said and the girl's face lighted up.

"I'll get my bathing suit," Danielle wanted to run out of the room, but Willow stopped her.

"You'll buy one there, we're taking a shortcut," she stared at Angel. "Sare vento chero!" she yelled and a cloud of powder surrounded them all, blinding most of them. Soon they felt the floor from under their feet was gone. In all the confusion and blindness, Angel heard Willow's voice whispering in his ear:

"Be careful, Angel. Come back in one piece, at least for her sake."

The next thing they knew they had hit the floor of Angel's office hard and a choking smoke had filled the room. Fred 2 and Wes 2 started coughing desperately.

"Willow?" Angel - not bothered by the smoke - asked spotting a figure sitting in his chair.

"Actually," a very familiar voice said. "I never really thought of myself as a willow, I was more of a spike."

"You!" Angel yelled now spotting Spike in his chair as the smoke cleared. "What are you doing here?"

"What? No greeting? No secret handshake?...No hug?" he asked smiling amused.

"What the hell are you doing here!" Angel yelled even harder this time.

"Hi, Spike," Lonny saluted the blond vampire smiling.

"Hey, boss," Harmony came in trying to clear the smoke with her notepad. "Did you see who came back?" she sighed dreamily and added: "It's gonna be like in the good old times again. You, me, Lonny and Spike. The four musketeers! All for one and...uhm..."

"One for all," Wes 2 helped her.

"That's it!" Harmony really seemed happy about the event, but Angel only stared at Spike, not saying a word. Then, all of a sudden, he jumped the other vampire throwing him out of his chair while Fred 2 and Wes 2 looked on in shock and Lonny only rolled her eyes.

_Sunnydale  
Year: 2003  
Location: Summers house_

She was woken up by the commotion. Girls whispering things to each other somewhere near her. The sound of water running and someone screaming for someone else to get out of the bathroom already. A lot of voices talking in the kitchen. She stirred awake, slightly annoyed. When she stood up, the two girls sitting close to where she had been sleeping froze. They didn't recognize her.

"Hi, I'm Mina. I just got here last night," she told them and recovering from the shock the girls began introducing themselves as well. One was called Amanda and another Rona and they began excitingly telling her everything that had happened so far, boring Mina to near death as she knew most of the things they told her from the slayer archives and she wasn't interested in the rest, but she had no choice but to listen. She had to act like she was clueless. While they blabbered on she kept a close watch on everyone who came in and out of the kitchen. There were only potentials, then there was Andrew that was constantly complaining about a back ache, but no sign of anyone she might have recognized.

"Mina," Amanda snapped her out of her thoughts. "You wanna come eat with us or not?"

"You could meet the rest," Rona pointed out.

"Yeah, sure," Mina shook her head and followed the two girls to the kitchen. Curious heads turned towards the new arrival.

"Everyone, this is Mina," Andrew stepped next to the young slayer and introduced her to the whole group. Mina didn't remember most of the names and didn't bother to keep them in mind now. She knew who was important and who was not and those potentials were the root of the slayer kind and for that simple reason she chose to hate them like she hated all the other slayers of her time. There was no time for chit-chat - Thank god! Mina thought - as a blond girl in her twenties whom she assumed, by process of elimination, was Anya, came into the kitchen announcing there was going to be a meeting in the living room. Xander came in after her and Andrew took the time to introduce them to the new arrival.

"Another one?" Anya asked exasperated.

"The more the merrier at this point," Xander said. "Don't make the girl feel uncomfortable on her first day, An."

"I suppose. It could be her last after all," Anya shrugged. "Welcome to Sunnydale. How was your trip?"

"Bumpy," Mina said dryly.

"How did you get here?" Andrew asked curious. "Did you parachute out of an airplane?"

"She's not James Bond, Andrew," Xander told him smiling.

"My car got thrashed when I was attacked by the eyeless freaks," Mina explained. No more questions were asked as a redhead - Willow, Mina guessed instantly - entered the kitchen and told them all to come into the living room for the meeting. Mina smiled, it all sounded very familiar.

Entering the living room, she spotted her instantly: short, blond, standing imposingly in the middle of the room with her hands crossed over her chest, the legend, the myth in flesh and blood and Mina was oddly disappointed. That was it? She had beaten to a bloody pulp slayers much more tough looking than her. She tried to meet her gaze, but didn't succeed in doing so. Buffy seemed much too preoccupied by other things to notice her. Mina supposed that was for the best. She didn't want her to get suspicious until it was too late. She looked around the room and came across a person she had almost forgotten about: the other slayer, Faith and she had no problem meeting her curious gaze. Mina realized she had to be more careful around her, because Faith had the time to be suspicious, while Buffy did not. It was suddenly quiet and all eyes turned to Buffy as she began speaking:

"I hate this. I hate being here. I hate that you have to be here. I hate that there's evil and that I was chosen to fight it. I wish a whole lot of the time that I hadn't been. I know a lot of you wish I hadn't been, either. But this isn't about wishes. This is about choices. I believe we can beat this evil. Not when it comes. Not when its army is ready. Now..."

And while she spoke her famous speech, Mina held back the urge to roll her eyes. Bla, bla, bla, bla, bla, she thought to herself and felt like finishing her mission then and there, but knew it was too risky, so she simply tried not to fall asleep during the awfully long and dull speech and think of a way she could get closer to the slayer.

_End Part 4_


	6. 3rd degree burn

**Part 5  
3rd degree burn**

_Los Angeles  
Year: 2083  
Location: Wolfram & Hart Demon Hunting Inc_

"That hurt, you bloody ingrate!" Spike said wiping the blood away from his chin. Angel, still in full vampire mode growled at him. "Down, pussycat!" he hissed at him.

"Could you like stop for a minute?" Harmony asked exasperated. The fact that she seemed to be the voice of reason in the room made Angel come to his senses. He let his vampire face slip back and now glared at Spike with his human one, giving him a dirty look.

"Why ingrate?" Fred 2 suddenly asked and Spike seemed to finally notice her.

"Fred?" the blond vampire asked amazed staring at the girl only a few feet away from him.

"2," the girl added, feeling her face was beginning to turn red. Her brother rolled his eyes behind her.

"What?" Spike didn't understand.

"Huh?" Fred 2 finally snapped out of her dazed state, a bit embarrassed and extending her hand towards the vampire, quickly said: "Fred 2. I'm her great-granddaughter."

"Little Fred?" Spike was again shocked. "I was actually there when you were born. This whole demon herd chasing your mom...Most disgusting thing I ever saw - the birth I mean - and that includes the...," he interrupted his own words realizing he was making Fred 2 uncomfortable, so he cleared his throat and asked: "Didn't you have a twin brother?" Wes 2 rose his hand and Spike smiled: "Figures he'd look like old Percy."

"What did you mean by ingrate?" Fred 2 asked again.

"Well, here I come to help him save the day and he punches me in the bloody chin," Spike explained looking back at Angel.

"I don't need you to save the day," Angel replied angrily throwing himself in his chair. He reminded Lonny, for a brief moment, of a spoiled little child who didn't want to share his toys with the other kids.

"I'm not happy about this either, but the man said I gotta take you along for the ride," he looked out the windows of the office for a moment before adding: "He made himself pretty clear what'll happen if I don't."

"Someone bossing you around?" Lonny asked rising her eyebrows.

"That's another way of putting it...," Spike wouldn't have admitted it for the world.

"You going soft after thirty years?" Lonny was amused.

"What are you talking about? I'm as hard as rock. I could still take you down with one hand tied behind my back," Spike said measuring her up.

"Really?" Lonny had a defiant look in her eyes that promised no good.

"Stop it. The both of you," Angel told them and then turned to Spike: "And what exactly are you supposed to help me with?"

"He wasn't very precise. Ugly bugger too, he said something about a girl going into the past or..." Spike began and Harmony interrupted him giddily:

"Uh-uh! He means that slayer bitch that broke into your apartment the other day!"

"You know her?" Spike looked over at Angel.

"Sort of. She stole something from him," Wes 2 answered for Angel. "The thing she used to get into the past with. It was from his safe."

"So this is all your fault?" Spike asked angrily. "I should've figured out as much."

"Hey!" Angel frowned. "I didn't plan this. You think I don't have any better things to do than to chase some lunatic slayer god knows where into the past?" he paused for a moment before admitting: "Okay, so maybe I was a bit reckless."

"Damn right you were," Lonny agreed with him smiling.

"Do we know where we're going?" Angel stared back at Spike.

_Year: 2083  
Location: The sunny beaches of Rio de Janeiro_

"Oh, c'mon! You're gonna make me go all the way back to the hotel?" Danielle Dervain asked pouting. "It's not fair, you can make your skin not burn...It's just sunscreen, you could zap up a few bottles like that," she snapped her fingers.

"And that's exactly why I won't. Using magic for even the most insignificant thing is a bad habit. Makes you lose touch with reality. Makes you think you can do anything by snapping your fingers," she imitated her gesture and then pointed with her hand behind them towards a few small wooden shacks in the horizon: "And you don't have to go all the way back to the hotel. You can buy anything from fruit to clothes right there."

"Oh," Danielle seemed a bit embarrassed that she hadn't noticed them too. "I'll be right back," she told the witch and grabbing her beach bag she got up and scattered off towards the wooden shacks. Willow smiled and let herself lay back down on the sand. Danielle reminded her so much of herself and that was the main reason she had taken her under her wing. The other was loneliness. She had had enough fights with evil to last her an eternity, she had seen and experienced things the human mind could only imagine... she had had enough of lovers she had loved and lost...and even sexuality had lost its unique spark. She laughed to herself, her body was young, but inside she was slowly becoming old. A wiseman - a wise old woman actually. A shadow had laid itself over her, standing between her and the light of the sun.

"Hey!" she yelled lazily and opened her eyes. The moment she came across the person in front of her she said in a semi-amused voice: "Oh, it's you."

The tall strange figure simply stared at her.

"Is something wrong?" she asked half-standing up in a more serious tone.

"Are you sure about these...vampires?" the Hur'dha asked looking down at the witch with a rather doubtful look in its eyes.

"You asked for heroes, I gave you heroes. The best there are," she assured him as her eyes stopped upon the long wooden staff in his hand that she knew held immense power. She knew because a long time ago she had held it in her hands for a brief period of time. The feeling was indescribable...

"I asked for your help" he reminded her.

"And I have long stopped giving any," the witch said in a rather cold voice. "I showed you real heroes that would help you for one reason or another. And now you're here, making pouty faces at me. Don't you trust me?"

"I...," the Hur'dha began, but the witch interrupted him, correcting herself:

"Okay, maybe not me - you have all the right in the world after what happened, but don't you trust my judgement either?"

"I see trouble," he told her avoiding to answer her question.

"You said that before. It's the girl," she reminded him.

"No, it's a boy this time. He wants to stop them - your heroes," his dark blue eyes met hers and Willow whispered:

"Rupert."

_Los Angeles  
Year: 2083  
Location: The LA Slayer Association HQ_

The young watcher woke up feeling dizzy and nauseous. He grabbed on to the nearest leg of the table and pulled himself up slowly. His sight was blurry and he wasn't quite sure what had happened. He threw himself in an empty chair and realized something was wrong. The chair was cold, but he knew only moments ago Angel had been sitting in it. Then suddenly it all came back to him like a painful jolt of electricity crossing his body. Willow...

"THAT BITCH!" he screamed, now fully awakened. He looked around the conference room and saw the two older men still out cold at the other end of the table and something resembling ashes scattered on the floor. Rupert wished those ashes would've been part of Angel's scattered staked body, but knew too well, they couldn't be. They were remnants of a transportation spell. Willow had helped Angel escape. If she wanted war he was going to give her one. He searched his pockets and pulled out his cellphone. He dialed a number quickly and as soon as the person on the other end picked up, he said:

"We have a code red on our hands."

_Location: The Hollow Crossroads  
Time: Nowhen_

Willow sighed looking around the empty landscape. She had been here before on several occasions, none she remembered with great delight. The place itself gave her a disturbing feeling in her stomach and made her hair stand on end. The worse thing was it awakened within her a boundless melancholy, because this was the place where all the threads of past things met and she could feel the memories creeping in through the infinite hollow crossroads straight into her heart and mind.

"Can you feel him? The anger?" The Hur'dha looked back at her.

"It's strong," she nodded.

"Why does he hate you so much?" he asked turning away from the empty patch of ground he had been staring at. "I've looked and looked into your past to find the reason, but I have yet to find one."

"He's young. Desperate to prove himself and horrendously immature. He doesn't need a reason to hate. It comes with the age," she said smiling and then added: "I'm all the things he stands against. Evil - in his mind anyway - too much power, his own past, his own lineage. He's ashamed of being related to the Giles I knew. And that alone turns him into someone worth hating in my eyes," her eyes flashed black briefly and then returned to normal. She blinked several times before she continued: "Sure, me and Giles, we had our differences at one point or another, but he saved me so many times, helped me out of so many seriously bad situations, taught me so many things...He was an amazing person. He should be building him a monument not be ashamed of him."

"You have to understand history seen from inside the Watcher's Council can be very different from that seen outside it. Your Giles was a betrayer, a weak link to them and because all he ever wanted to be was a watcher, this young Rupert, has taken on the same beliefs. It doesn't necessarily mean he truly believes that he says. Deep inside, he might acknowledge the truth," the Hur'dha told her in a rather absent tone.

"You have too much free time on your hands," the witch laughed softly. "Tell me, have you been analyzing every little moment of my life since I left here?"

"Not every moment," the Hur'dha said, a smile crossing his blue hairless face. "You make a fascinating case study."

"From many points of view - that was creepy," Willow said and then sighing asked: "So is the time right now?"

"Just about. You know what you have to do?" he turned towards her.

"Every little thing," her eyes flashed black again for a moment before, turning back to normal, they stared in the same direction as the Hur'dha's.

_Year: 2003  
Location: Sunnydale_

They were all a bunch of incompetent whiny little girls. No wonder Buffy had had to spread her powers to get herself a real army. Watching them training in the backyard, Mina stood aside, shaking her head. One of the girls - what was her name? Kenny-something - had told her she could sit aside in the beginning and watch them. She could join them whenever she felt she got the hang of it cause otherwise she'd just be in the way. Their moves were ridiculously slow and as far as Mina could tell, not one of them would survive in a fight with a-few- years-old vampire.

"Hey, Kenny!" she yelled after the dark haired potential that was running the training session this morning.

"It's Kennedy, not Kenny," the girl said while she neared her.

"Right," she couldn't have cared less.

"What is it?" Kennedy asked overlooking the potential slayers with a certain feeling of pride.

"Doesn't the slayer ever train with you?" Mina asked forwardly.

"She taught us the moves. But right now she has more important things to take care of or weren't you listening when she was talking in there?" she pointed towards the house.

"I was listening," Mina lied. By the time Buffy had finished her loooong speech she had counted all the spots on the ceiling and all the lines in the carpet and had had enough time left to reorganize her schedule for next week mentally too.

"Wanna give it a try?" Kennedy suggested gesturing towards the group.

"Why not?" Mina asked smiling. "Who's up for a one on one?"

_Year: 2083_

_Location: Wolfram & Hart Demon Hunting Inc._

"A great woman? Like Mother Theresa?" Fred 2 asked rising her eyebrows.

"Why would anyone want to kill or stop Mother Theresa?" Wes 2 seemed skeptical.

"Willow said it was personal," Angel suddenly remembered. "A great woman I knew..." there was a brief pause before he and Spike said at the same time: "Buffy."

"Bullshit," Lonny said knowingly. "Why would a slayer go after Buffy? They practically worship her! They did everything but built her a temple. They have a National Buffy Summers day in their calendars for god sakes!"

"She's the greatest woman I've ever known," Angel pointed out.

"Just think for a moment," Fred 2 told them. "From everything that Buffy has done in her entire lifetime, what would a slayer want to change?"

"That's easy," Lonny immediately answered her question. "To stop her from spreading her powers."

"That's ridiculous!" Wes 2 protested. "That was the event that made all these girls slayers. They suddenly don't want their superpowers anymore?"

"No, you're thinking about it the wrong way," Lonny explained. "Any slayer that's a little too cocky for her own good gets into her pretty little head that she's somehow better than the rest of 'em and that maybe she was supposed to be the one and only. The slayer. And they get all these stupid ideas about how famous and rich and glorious they'd be if there was only one slayer."

"Bollocks," Spike mumbled to himself. Those girls had no idea how a slayer faced the world alone. He had seen it and it was a sad sight.

"Yeah, well I'm just telling you how it is," Lonny said lifting her shoulders.

"That's still ridiculous," Angel said thoughtfully.

"Why?" Fred 2 asked curious.

"Because if she hadn't spread her powers, then..." Angel began, but gave up continuing his phrase when the phone on his desk rang. He quickly picked it up. "Angel."

"It's Mantley from security. Sir...there are some rather anxious people who want to talk to you," the man on the other end of the line said.

"Who exactly?" Angel asked and there was a small pause before Mantley said:

"The SA, sir. They seem to think they have a right to enter the building. A legal right."

"Hold them off as long as you can," he ordered him before hanging up. "The SA's here."

"Are we gonna make a run for it?" Lonny asked and Angel gave her a rather desperate look. If the SA wanted them badly enough there wasn't really a place they could hide in until things cooled off. Mainly because when it came to the SA something like this never cooled off.

"Life on the run, think of the excitement. Living in caves, feeding on rats. A must do," Spike said smiling. Before Angel could reply a flash of light followed by a cloud of dust filled the room. When the dust settled two figures were standing in the middle of the room: Willow and the Hur'dha.

"Sounds fun to me," the witch said smiling.

"Red? This is turning out to be a bloody reunion, but without the party hats and good blood and with an extra blue friend," Spike gestured towards the Hur'dha with his head. "Don't tell me, you know him?"

"We're...uhm, old...fr-friends," Willow said having trouble finding her words.

"Funny, I'm an old friend and I'm not three feet tall, blue and freaky," Spike noted.

"No, you're a British blond vampire with a soul and a smoking problem," Willow replied.

"Uh - touché," Spike smiled and then asked her: "So does the big reunion call for a hug?" he suddenly felt a great pain in his left leg inflicted by a high heel. "HARM!"

"Sure you want to hug the ubberwitch, but you didn't want to hug me," the blond vampire was insulted.

"I'm afraid you don't have much time," Willow told them. "You have to go."

"Go where?" Lonny asked confused.

"Hur'dha," the witch turned towards the blue creature and it nodded. Then turning towards the others she said: "I'll explain later. There's really not much time..." the sound of an agitation was heard outside the doors of Angel's office.

"Great," Angel mumbled.

"One, two...," Willow's eyes shined dark. "Three."

The Hur'dha rose his staff in the air and in a blinding flash of light, all but Willow disappeared. Smiling, the witch sat down in Angel's chair and put her feet up on the desk. The sound of people running towards the office could be heard, then, a few seconds afterwards the door swung open and a young watcher, surrounded by a group of slayers entered the office.

"Hello, Rupert," Willow smiled victoriously.

_Location: The Hollow Crossroads  
Time: Absolutely nowhen_

When she uncovered her eyes she found herself in a bizarre empty landscape that spread as far as the eye could see. Looking around, she spotted the figure of the strange blue creature standing a few feet away from her. Next to her, her twin brother seemed in as much shock as she was.

"What is this place?" Fred 2 asked first.

"These are the Hollow Crossroads, child," the Hur'dha said with his eyes still glued to a point somewhere in the horizon.

"Where's blondy bear, you freak?" Harmony asked feeling uncomfortable in that strange new place.

"Angel's missing too. And the witch," Lonny noticed looking around.

"They're gone...I've sent them into the past," the Hur'dha told her. "Willow said I should keep you here until she settles things with the young one."

"You think I'm scared of a pipsqueak watcher?" Lonny asked revolted immediately understanding who 'the young one' was.

"No, I don't believe you are, Alonna. But not even you can fight an army of slayers," the blue creature gave her a quick look before returning to the point in the horizon.

"Don't call me that," Lonny replied coldly.

"So what are we supposed to do? Just wait?" Wes 2 didn't like the sound of that. The Hur'dha did not answer him.

_Location: Sunnydale  
Year: 2003_

Kennedy was laying on the ground breathing hard. She looked up at Mina. She hadn't even broken a sweat during their fight. The potentials had formed a circle around them and had followed the entire fight breathlessly. Mina was strong, extremely skilled and possessed a power they had seen only in Buffy and Faith before. Of course none of them thought about the possibility of a third slayer because it was impossible while the other two still lived. Blood ran down Kennedy's chin and Mina looked down at her with a cold smile. The potential had put up more of a fight than she had expected.

"Who put you up to this?" a voice suddenly startled the potential slayers and turning back they discovered the origin of the voice to be Buffy.

"No one," Kennedy said standing up, badly bruised and still bleeding. "I just thought it was time we tried..."

"It was my idea," Mina interrupted her. "I wanted to see if I had the right moves for this outfit. I thought Kenny here would be the most suitable one to establish that since you're busy with...all the important things you have to take care of. For the big plan."

"Kennedy," the potential corrected her again and stared at her angrily.

"You have great moves. I saw the end of the fight," Buffy told her and Mina smiled defiantly desperately wanting to ask: you want to see just how great? "But this isn't the time or place for a stunt like this. We need each and everyone of you tomorrow. In one piece. Fit to fight, got it?"

"Got it," Mina said dryly.

_Location: Sunnydale  
Year: 2003_

When he fell, Spike hit the already deformed shape of the Welcome to Sunnydale sign, while Angel landed on the empty road.

"Au!" Spike let out as he fell off the sign and his head started spinning. When his vision finally cleared he came face to face with that familiar sign that welcomed people to the hellmouth. "Welcome, home," he whispered to himself as somewhere in the background Angel rose off the road feeling just as beaten as he did.

_End Part 5_


	7. Explosion

**Part 6  
Explosion**

_Location: Sunnydale  
Year: 2003_

As they walked down the street, Angel couldn't help but notice the smug smile on Spike's lips. He seemed to be particularly happy - if not ecstatic - about being there. Why? Angel had his guesses. As for him, he wasn't particularly enthusiastic about the whole affair. Time travel was messy and confusing and that's exactly the reason he avoided it. And the fact he'd be seeing old friends - long dead - again would only deepen that feeling of utter despair that sometimes clenched his heart in an iron fist. The simple idea that miles away, Fred, Wes, Gunn, Lorne and Cordy were still alive and just entering the world of Wolfram & Hart, made his stomach jump up and down.

"What are you so happy about?" Angel asked him and Spike gave him a quick look before answering:

"I'm home, mate."

"Won't be for long," he pointed out. "You here or Sunnydale here for that matter. Another day and poof..."

"Talking about that. You noticed we're walking around in daylight?" Spike interrupted him.

"No, I was blinded by the brilliance of the moon," Angel rolled his eyes.

"What do you suppose that's all about?" he asked and the other vampire rose his shoulders. Spike smiled: "Spending all that time under the necro-tinted windows...it must've rubbed off on you. You're like a necro-tinted Angel. Now all you're missing are wings."

"And you a spike through the head," Angel walked on without looking at him. They walked on in silence for a while, the blond vampire still having a big smile on his face. At one point Angel suddenly stopped in the middle of the road. Spike went on for a while before realizing he was alone and turned back to see Angel a few good feet away from him.

"Well, c'mon! We don't have all bloody day!" he yelled after him. Angel, seeming like he was just snapped out of a very deep contemplation looked up and realizing that he had stopped walking, he caught up with Spike.

"We need a plan of action," Angel told him when he was by his side again.

"Plan of action? This isn't a bloody fight, just a snotty teenager that needs to be slapped around a bit," Spike reminded him.

"A snotty slayer," he pointed out. "Buffy was just a teenager too and we both know she could've killed us both."

"Oh, please, you seriously think that one of those silly little girls prancing around in our time calling themselves slayers just because they killed a vampire, can hold a candle to Buffy?" Spike smirked: "You must be out of your mind."

"I've seen her file, Spike. She's not a silly little girl. She might not be a Buffy, but she's at least a Faith," Angel warned him.

"What? Psychotic, messy and all over the place?" he smiled again: "Piece of cake."

"That's not what I meant," Angel said and didn't explain himself any further.

"Okay," Spike gave up. "Plan of action? Fine, we'll do it your way."

"Good. I was thinking I could go in, talk to Buffy, tell her the girl's a traitor or something like that. She'll look out for her, if she's not already in the house of course - I think she probably is - Buffy'll help me catch her or otherwise throw her out of the house. We grab her, the blue guy takes us home. End of story. Easy, fast and most importantly, clean."

"Hold on just a bloody minute," Spike stopped in the middle of the road. "What's all this about you going in, you talking to Buffy, you and Buffy catching her? Where am I in all this?"

"You're...patrolling the city," Angel stopped as well and avoided Spike's look.

"Bollocks! If you think I'm going to stay out of your way and listen like a good little puppy you don't know me as well as you think you do," he was growing angry.

"Look, Spike, this is for the best. You know full well what'll happen if you come face to face with her," Angel crossed his arms over his chest.

"Right. Like it won't happen to you," Spike pointed out.

"It won't," Angel assured him. "I left her once - you forget - out of my own free will. You never did and probably never would have."

"Probably because I loved her more than you," the vampire said with a wicked smile on his face.

"Don't make me hit you again," Angel warned him as he began walking again. Spike punched the air in front of him angrily. He caught up with Angel and told him, in a calm voice:

"I don't care what you say. You're not keeping her from me. Not anymore."

"There is a reason for my plan, Spike. And as much as you flatter yourself into thinking you're it, you're not. I can pretend to be the Angel of this time and avoid all the horrible whats and hows. You can't really say the same for you, can you?" he looked at Spike for a moment, as if searching for a reaction, before looking back at the road ahead.

"If that's your damn reason for it, I'll make sure it won't be a problem anymore," Spike said defiantly as the houses on the edge of Sunnydale appeared in front of them, abandoned, empty as the town itself. Angel wondered what Spike had on his mind.

_Los Angeles_

_Year: 2083_

_Location: Wolfram & Hart Demon Hunting Inc._

"What the hell are you doing here!" Rupert yelled at her and Willow seemed to be even more amused than before.

"What? Can't a witch visit an old friend?" Willow asked innocently.

"Can't a witch use a transportation spell to break the law?" Rupert asked angrily and answered as well: "No, she can't."

"When did I use a transportation spell?" she acted like she didn't know what he was talking about.

"Don't play dumb with me, auntie Willow," he said mockingly. "I've got tapes of you making a getaway with Angel and his friends. And they're spell proof," he smiled triumphantly.

"Oh, you mean the ones that are erasing themselves as we speak?" Willow chuckled. "You're such a kid, Rupert. Let me give you a hint - tapes might be spell proof, but the security people's mind, not so spell proof."

"But you can't...," he began, but the witch continued his words:

"Affect people from so far away? You'd be amazed. Let's get rid of your escort, shall we?" she snapped her fingers and the slayers that had accompanied him disappeared in a cloud of dust. Rupert smirked:

"As soon as they get back to headquarters, they'll send in back up. Probably from our mystics department."

"Oh, I think they'll have a little trouble sending in back-up from Siberia," he looked at her incredulously. "Don't worry, I left them in this absolutely picturesque little town. They'll love it."

"You're sick," Rupert said disgusted.

"I'm misunderstood," she gave him a small smile. "Now, let's discuss this little situation." The doors of the office shut behind Rupert startling him. She gestured with her hand for him to come closer. She didn't wait for him to decide whether to approach her or not, and pulled him magically towards the seat opposite hers with the young watcher struggling all the way. "What exactly are you trying to prove, Rupert?"

"That your kind shouldn't be tolerated," he answered her coldly.

"I thought the old should be respected," she pointed out.

"You're not old," he said.

"You amaze me," Willow laughed. "You should've learnt by now that appearances can be deceiving. What do you think, that the real Willow died years ago and some demon took her place?"

"She was gone for three years. And when she came back, she was you," he reminded her.

"And you liked that Willow more than this Willow?" she asked curious, knowing full well he had always treated her this way.

"I was too young to know the old Willow. But I can't believe that the girl from all those stories from the past is you," he confessed.

"I don't know what kind of stories you know, Rupert, but you realize that that girl was the same that skinned a man alive and tried to destroy the world, right?" she asked and he didn't answer. "I am Willow. But let's get back to business."

"There is no business," Rupert cut her off before she could add another word. "If you think you can bribe or convince me to drop all charges, don't bother to even try. I've wanted this for too long."

"I wouldn't dream of it," she smiled.

"Huh?" he was confused. "Why all the business talk then?"

"To give me enough time to erase the memories of everyone involved in this incident of yours. I don't really like mind tampering, but when it's absolutely necessary..." she lifted her shoulders.

"You bitch!" he yelled getting up from the chair.

"Sit down," she ordered him and he fell back into the chair with a hard thump. "I don't really appreciate people insulting me. I know this nifty little spell that could cut your face or your vital organs every time you say something bad about me," her eyes flashed black for a moment, but it passed just as quickly as it appeared. "But that would be wrong, wouldn't it?"

"So this was a trap? You wanted me to come here so you could erase my memories standing right in front of me? Just for the irony of it?" he asked angrily.

"No, no, you got it all wrong," Willow defended herself with an amused smile. "That wouldn't be irony at all, now, would it? No, Rupert, you won't forget, that's the irony. Everyone else will, but you'll remember and no matter how hard you try to prove your words, you won't find one piece of evidence. And don't try finding that system breach either. It's been...fixed as well."

"Why are you doing this?" he asked horrified.

"What can I say? I'm sick," her smile faded. "Now..." the doors of the office opened by themselves: "...get out." Rupert, still in his chair practically flew out into the hallway. The doors shut behind him. Willow sighed satisfied. She had handled the situation pretty nicely. Now, she told herself, the sunny beaches of Rio de Janeiro were waiting for her! She closed her eyes and tried to transport herself there, but nothing happened.

"What the..." she tried again. And again. Suddenly out of nowhere, without even a trace of dust, the Hur'dha appeared. "You! This is your fault! I should've known!" the creature stared at her and she sighed: "I did what you asked me to do. I put the kid in his place, now if you don't mind I have a relaxing vacation that's just waiting for me."

"It's not over yet," the Hur'dha told her looking insistently at the door Rupert had just flown out of. "He's getting in our way as we speak."

"You don't want me to kill him, do you?" she asked confused.

"No," the Hur'dha turned towards her. "Just watch him."

_Location: The Hollow Crossroads  
Time: Absolutely nowhen_

Lonny paced around in circles around Fred 2 and Wes 2. She reminded Wes 2 of a caged tiger. Harmony stood aside, with her arms crossed over her chest and the look of an upset child on her face. The fact that they were alone with two vampires - one of which he knew for sure didn't have a soul - made Wes 2 uncomfortable and slightly tense. Lonny, immediately noticing his change, stopped pacing abruptly and stared at Wes 2 with a smile on her face:

"Don't worry, you're not what I'd like to call a tasty snack. Can't speak for Harm over there," she gestured with her head towards the blond vampire.

"Like you'd even know how human blood taste," Harmony gave her a dirty look. "Your daddy bottle fed you pig blood since your first day as a vampire."

"Oh, buh-huh. What am I suppose to be sorry for? Not bein' a cold blooded killer?" Lonny shot back.

"Hey, do-do you realize where we are?" Fred 2 interrupted them stuttering.

"Big empty place?" Harmony suggested.

"The Hollow Crossroads, Fred," Wes 2 told his sister. "I think the big blue Hur-thing made that pretty clear before he whooshed out of here."

"Precisely. This is the place where all past things meet," she got up from the ground and excitingly began explaining: "From here we can go virtually anywhere into the past. Though I assume there are some forbidden corridors. For safety reason of course. I mean think if someone would go back to the time when demons ruled the earth..."

"I don't see how that's going to help us," Wes 2 said realizing full well what was going through his sister's mind at the moment.

"Anywhere into the past, huh?" Lonny seemed to have in mind the same idea as Fred 2: the past meant their great- grandparents, her father...it could be so easy. Maybe she could even avoid her transformation...She shook her head and chased away that idea. She had helped a lot of people and who knew what would happen to them if she never lived to see the day they needed to be saved.

"Yeah, but guessing which crossroad takes you where is a long shot. You might want to travel 2 years into the past and wind up in ancient Rome instead," Fred 2 lifted her shoulders.

"Not if you can calculate the trajectory," Wes 2 interfered. "Giving the infinite possibilities it's pretty...impossible, but give me a pen and two hours and I think I might find something."

"Just find a way back home," Harmony said handing him a blue pen from her pocket. "This place is beginning to give me the creeps."

"Let's just hope all those physics books I read are going to pay up," Wes 2 said as he began scratching the ground and elaborating a few theories.

"This is going to take a loooong time," Lonny said exasperated and then turned towards Fred 2: "That thing-a-ma-gig the chick used to get into the past, what was it called?"

"The ring of Batt-Hura," Fred 2 answered her.

"And you're positive that all these...crossroads lead into the past?" Lonny asked and Fred 2 nodded. The vampire slayer smiled: "Then fuck this!" she ran straight for a crossroad right under the terrified gaze of Fred 2 and a slightly bored Harmony.

"Lonny!" Fred 2 yelled after her, but she had already disappeared beyond the crossroad, somewhere into the past. She looked desperately at her brother - who was so concentrated on his theories that he hadn't noticed the scene - and then at Harmony who seemed indifferent to what had just happened. Taking a deep breath, without really knowing what she was doing, Fred 2 ran towards the same crossroad Lonny had gone down. Harmony tried to catch her, but she vanished into nothingness before she had a chance to stop her. Only now, Wes 2, realizing what had just happened, looked up horrified.

"Fred! Fred!" he yelled in vain then turned towards Harmony and angrily screamed at her: "Why didn't you stop her!"

"I tried," Harmony said in her defense. She couldn't have cared less about Lonny, but she cared for Fred 2 even if it was just because of her blood relation to the original Fred and Wes.

"What the..." Wes 2 had turned to look over what he had just written on the ground - in the hope that maybe his formulas could somehow establish where his sister had disappeared to - but the ground was empty as if he hadn't written a word on it. "Shit!" he yelled and kicked the ground, rising dust in the air.

_Location: Sunnydale  
Year: 2003_

Mina whistled contently as she entered the kitchen and headed straight for the fridge. Things were going pretty well and her mission was going to be much more easier than she had anticipated. She had learnt - through Buffy's annoyingly long speech - that the slayer powers had been spread through the scythe. She had considered stealing the scythe at first, but then thought the potentials and the slayers wouldn't stand a chance against the Turok-Han army without it and having an army of that proportion escape the hellmouth before it was closed was not an option. Maybe, she thought with a smile, they could simply die while the hellmouth closed, buried under the rubble of Sunnydale High.

Of course, the easiest way to handle the situation was to attack the witch while she was casting the spell. Kennedy, as she had learnt during the morning, was an easy match and she could take her out easily. Then all she had to do was knock out the witch or somehow disrupt the spell and - BOOM! - no more slayer nation, only one chosen one. What would happen if all the potentials died along with the two slayers? If there was one thing she had learnt that was that there was no such thing as no potentials left in the world. She highly doubted they'd all die - she wasn't that lucky - but Buffy was. Besides Spike or more precisely that amulet would close the hellmouth before the Turok-Hans would have a chance to kill them all. Her whole plan avoided a direct confrontation with Buffy. In some ways she was disappointed, but knew a conflict with Buffy could be too risky... The slayer would only find out about her apparent betrayal after the Sunnydale big bang and then it would no longer matter. She caressed the ring of Batt-Hura dangling from her belt.

"What's that?" a voice startled her and she closed the fridge and looked at the person who had spoken: Spike. She had been so lost in her thoughts that she hadn't felt his presence.

"You scared me," she said sighing.

"Didn't mean to," he was still staring at the ring.

"It's...my watcher gave it to me, before he died," she explained. "He said it would help me out of bad situations. Don't know what exactly it does."

"You should ask Red about that. I'm sure she could find out what it is," he said still staring at her.

"I didn't want to bother her with stupid little things. I think she has better things to do," Mina said smiling. "Besides it might be just something of sentimental value. It's not necessarily magical."

"That whole good-girl-trying-not-to-get- in-anyone's-way-just-here-to-help routine isn't fooling me, you know" Spike said tilting his head slightly. "I saw you fight. Watched you through the window with Buffy. You're tough, experienced, merciless... And no watcher taught you those moves, luv. Take it from someone who's seen his share of slayers. You even smell different from the rest. So who the bloody hell are you and what exactly are you doing here?"

"I'm just here to help," Mina swallowed hard. What were the chances of staking Spike and getting away with it? Practically close to none. She had to come up with something fast.

"Bollocks!" Spike gave her an annoyed look.

"Fine," Mina suddenly got an idea. "I'll tell you who I am, but not here. It's not safe. Is anyone in the basement?"

"No," Spike said eyeing her suspiciously.

"Let's go downstairs and I'll tell you all about it," she smiled. Just as they were heading downstairs the echo of the doorbell could be heard.

Buffy, who was just coming down from her room opened the door and asked surprised:

"Angel?" the vampire smiled.

"I changed my mind. I'm staying, no matter what you say," he told her and the slayer asked confused:

"What are you doing in daylight!"

Two houses away, a desolated Spike followed the scene, trying his best to see as much as he could of the small slayer. He sighed: he had to find a way to get in that house.

_End Part 6_


	8. Spike flambe

**Part 7**

**Spike flambé**

_Location: Sunnydale  
Year: 2003_

"Necro-tinted clothes?" Angel tried and Buffy rose her eyebrows questioningly.

"What?" she asked confused, but before Angel had a chance to explain himself further, she grabbed him by the arm and pulled him inside the house. "Just in case your necro-what-you-ma-call- it suddenly stops working. I'm pretty sure a pile of ashes can't give me a good enough explanation for being here. Then again, I'm not sure you can either. "

"You really wanna fight?" Angel asked with a small smile playing on his lips. It had been ages since he had seen this young Buffy and standing in front of her now, he wondered if Spike hadn't been right all along and he would wind up acting like a school boy with a crush as well.

"Don't you use that smile on me," Buffy warned him. A few curious heads popped out from the kitchen watching the new arrival with curiosity.

"I talked to my people in LA, in case something goes wrong, they'll be prepared," Angel assured her.

"Your people?" Buffy asked amused. "LA's really getting to you."

"Yeah...," he cursed himself for being too used to the position of CEO of Wolfram & Hart to realize that to a normal person he might sound formal and too business-like.

"Just couldn't imagine missing out on a fight like this, huh?" she asked smiling.

"Well, I do have a pretty big bone to pick with this thing," he answered returning her smile. Focus, he told himself trying to somehow stay away from the pool of emotions she stirred up. He had to be professional. This wasn't a courtesy visit, it was mission - one that could prove highly dangerous.

"Angel!" he heard a voice yell and before he knew what was happening, Dawn was hugging him. He couldn't help but laugh.

_Los Angeles  
Location: Wolfram & Hart Demon Hunting Inc.  
Year: 2051_

Lonny hit the floor of the office hard, banging her chin on the floor and crushing her arm in an unnatural position. She groaned as she got up, blood dripping down her chin. Her arm was broken as she painstakingly felt when she tried to open the door to the office with it. With an unneeded sigh she twisted her arm back into place. It would heal soon enough.

Where was she? She easily recognized the hallways of Wolfram & Hart. They never really changed much. The people often did, but the building itself rarely. She walked down the hallways wondering if she had actually had the luck of landing back in her own time. Reaching the elevators, she quickly realized she didn't. Before her stood the old elevators of Wolfram & Hart, a model introduced just after her father's retirement, but in her time they no longer existed. They would be blown to pieces in the Rebellion of the Watcher's Armed Forces in 2058. She remembered the incident well enough as she herself had taken part in it. The Watcher's Armed Forces had been an elite group of mercenaries hired by the SA to handle more brutal situations where they felt slayers should not be involved. In other words they handled the dirty work. The rebellion had taken place because of the SA's decision to tolerate Angel's involvement in a feud between demon clans and implicitly the harboring of a demon mass- murderer. When said demon went on a rampage in downtown Los Angeles and killed over a hundred people and Angel still refused to hand him over to the proper authorities, it was the last straw for the Watcher's Armed Forces. They sent Angel a peaceful warning five minutes before beginning a big scale attack on Wolfram & Hart.

Thinking back to it, Lonny knew Angel hadn't had another option. That demon had been the only one who could mediate the peace between the two clans. Luckily for Angel, the peace was signed by the devouring of the mediator of the argument. The significance of the gesture being that by eating the mediator they gained his capacity to understand both clans and the respect he had for them.

Looking back at the elevators, she assumed she was somewhere before 2058, but after 2034 - the year her father had retired. Finding out the date would be easy, all she needed to find was a paper or a calendar. As the elevator doors opened she decided she could always go to Angel's office.

Harmony's desk was suspiciously empty of her ever present unicorns and the picture of the first vampire actor Lucius Bloodvine - signed "To my sexy blond seductress of the night. Love, Lucius" - usually covered in different shades of lipstick and that, as far as she knew, had never left her desk for 50 years. Harmony had had a crush on him ever since he made his first movie.

Lonny wondered if she had been fired or was on a vacation. People were walking down the hallways not really minding her. She headed for Angel's office, but at the very moment she reached for the doorknob the door opened abruptly and a full vamped Spike stormed out - she quickly got out of his way - yelling:

"You just bloody try it! Your whole fucking routine, see if it works!" he stalked off down the hallway and Lonny heard his growls and a woman screaming as she was being violently shoved out of his way. She peaked inside the office without making her presence known. Angel was standing, vamped out as well over his fallen desk, papers laying everywhere on the floor. He looked very pissed. Lonny was startled by the sound of elevator doors opening. She heard footsteps inside the office and the stupefied voice of a girl asking:

"What did you do?" As soon as she spotted the figure, Lonny closed her eyes and let out:

"Oh, crap!" she knew exactly the year she was in and she knew exactly who that girl was.

_Location: Sunnydale  
Year: 2003_

Mina was staring at the wall in front of her. She could hear Spike's footsteps behind her as he descended the last stairs into the basement. She sighed. This wasn't going to be easy, she didn't have much of a plan, just a little idea.

"Well?" she heard the vampire's impatient voice.

"How did they call you?" she asked turning towards him. "Ah, yes...William the Bloody. I heard it was because of bad poetry, not your killings. Kinda silly for a vampire. I myself always preferred the scourge of Europe, but..."

"Skip over the small talk, luv," Spike instructed her while lighting a cigarette.

"What do you want to hear, Spike?" she neared him, a dangerous light shining in her eyes. "Who exactly am I suppose to be? The First?" she touched his arm. "Nope. A bringer?" she pointed towards her eyes. "Still got 'em. Vampire? Demon? I'm pretty sure you could've smelled it," she chuckled. "Bad human? What the hell would I have to gain from demons taking over the world? Become a permanent snack?"

"If you got nothing to hide, why are you lying?" he asked and Mina began pacing around the basement, trying to find something that might come in handy.

"Those yours?" Mina asked rising her eyebrows when she came across the shackles hanging from the wall.

"You're avoiding the question," he said impatiently.

"So are you," she smiled. "Is there a reason people might think you're still dangerous? I know about the soul, but it still makes me wonder..."

"There was a reason, but that's not the case anymore," Spike answered nearing her. He thought intimidation was the best way to go with her. She was just a teenager after all, even if she was a particularly strong one. He had forgotten that Buffy had been only a teenager when she had defeated him more than a couple of times.

"So what, you keep them around for fun?" she smirked touching one of the shackles. "Kinky."

"I'm getting really tired of all this nonsense," he grabbed her by the arm, but before he even had a chance to react she had shoved him in the wall and quickly closed one of the shackles around his left wrist. She didn't have a chance to close the other shackle around his right wrist as he hit her across the face hard, sending her flying a few feet away from him.

"I tried it the easy way, now it's time for the hard way," he said angrily as he struggled to free himself from the shackle.

"If the slayer didn't want you to get free of those, I don't think you will," Mina said as she got up from the floor. "Good hit," she added wiping away the blood trickling down from her nose.

"What the bloody hell do you want?" he asked as he pulled harder and harder by the chains. "Did I kill your mom too? Is that it?"

"Oh, please, don't think of yourself so highly, Spike," Mina said as she picked up something Spike couldn't see. "You're simply getting in the way," she explained as she turned back towards him holding a shovel in her hands.

"You're gonna stake me?" he asked staring at the wooden handle of the shovel undisturbed.

"Hell no," she neared him. "You gotta save the world...luv. I can't afford to kill you. However," she came as close as she could to him, without being in his reach. "For the moment being, I have to take you out of the game. But don't worry, you'll be up and running before the big battle." With that said she rose the shovel and hit Spike across the face with the metallic end. The vampire winced in pain, but managed to grab the shovel before it hit him a second time.

"You think a bruise or two is going to hurt me?" he asked mockingly.

"One or two? Probably not. But a hundred, a thousand? I've got all day. How about we find out?" she yanked the shovel from his hand and hit him over the legs with it, knowing he was expecting another blow to the head. He let out a cry of pain. She frowned, having him screaming in the basement wasn't very wise. She faked a second blow to the legs, but instead hit his hand as it was preparing to intercept the shovel again.

"Buf..." he began yelling, but she quickly hit him over the face before he had a chance to finish his cry of help. Taking advantage of his momentary wince of pain, she hit him hard twice in the head, knocking him out. She moved quickly to restrain his free arm in the other shackle. His hand suddenly grabbed her by the neck, but the hold was weak - she could feel it, but she was startled nonetheless. She looked at him and saw his eyes were half-open like those of a man trying to stay awake.

"Who...are...," he mumbled before his hand fell limp on her chest and slid down her body, smudging the ring of Batt-Hura with his blood. He was out cold.

"Oh, crap," she let out pulling away from the passed out vampire and wiping away the blood from the ring still hanging from her belt. She looked at him and picking up the shovel she began furiously hitting him over and over again. When she was finished, she was breathing hard and Spike was just a bloody mass laying limp on equally bloody sheets. She let the deformed shovel slide down from her hands. "Sorry, old boy," she told the unconscious Spike. She just hoped he'd come to for Sunnydale's big finale. Buffy would probably look for him soon enough - he was one of the few persons who she'd probably realize was missing even at a time like this. And this, she looked around herself, was the first place she'd look. She had to hide Spike.

_Location: Sunnydale  
Year: 2003_

Spike entered the house through the back door, careful so no one could see him. He had decided to screw Angel's plan and just go in the house, to at least see Buffy one more time. He wasn't going to stay long, just a few minutes, enough to not run into his past self or - he guessed - a very pissed Angel and just enough, he smiled, to steal a kiss.

"There you are," Buffy said entering the kitchen. "Look, I know this is going to bother you a lot, but A..." she didn't have a chance to finish her words as Spike pulled her in his arms and kissed her. She pulled away and breathlessly muttered:

"Angel's here."

Spike looked up from her face towards the entrance of the kitchen and noticed Angel was standing in the doorway. He looked a little annoyed, but not particularly bothered to have witnessed the kiss. Thinking back, Spike wondered how anyone could confuse him with the Angel of this time. The Angel of 2003's blood would've been boiling and the first thing that would've come out of his mouth would have been an insult, instead of a semi-friendly:

"Hello, Spike."

The blond vampire suddenly realized that Angel had no idea it was him and not his past self. He smiled.

"What the bloody hell is he doing here!" he let go of the slayer - only he knew how hard it had been, but he was aware of the need to act as he normally would have in this time - and then stared at her and Angel. "I thought he was gone. Off to built the second front and all that nonsense he filled your head with so you wouldn't know just how big a coward he is."

"Stop it," Buffy gave him a cross look.

"Leaving the ship before it sinks, wasn't that your motto?" he continued to stare at Angel.

"Trying to be just like me, wasn't that yours?" Angel replied and Spike looked at him incredulously.

"I don't...," he protested.

"Oh, please, a soul, playing the hero in Sunnydale, Buffy...," Angel stated .

"Hey!" Buffy tried to interrupt them.

"Bollocks! Why would I try to copy you? God knows the world doesn't need another sexually frustrated brooding vampire with a head too big for his own body," Spike didn't take into consideration Buffy's interference.

"But I suppose it needs a cocky two bit vampire with a fake accent and an overused duster?" Angel said angrily.

"Would you two stop acting like a couple of two year olds!" the slayer yelled silencing them both. "I told him to go back to LA, but unfortunately his superhearing doesn't seems to work anymore," she told Spike and Angel smiled smugly. "And you," she turned towards Angel: "I don't appreciate being treated like an object you pass around from one person to another. This is a very hard time for me, a huge battle is waiting for us and I just might not make it out alive..."

"Yes, you will," both vampires said at the same time.

"And I might lose a lot of people I love," she ignored their words, thinking of them as attempts of comforting her, not a fact known by both of them. "I'm tired and I don't feel like all this possessive vampire bullshit. So, if you two could just deal with each other for 24 hours, I'd seriously appreciate it," she paused and then added, smiling: "And then if we survive this thing, maybe we could arrange for a little oil one-on-one wrestling," she headed out of the kitchen. She stopped in the doorway and turning back towards them, she said: "And another thing, if one of you two even mentions anything about the way I smell I'm going to beat the hell out of both of you, okay?" She marched out of the kitchen leaving the two stunned vampires behind. They stood in silence for a moment.

"Poofer!" Spike let out before exiting the kitchen.

"Captain peroxide!" Angel replied.

_Los Angeles  
Year: 2051_

_Location: Wolfram & Hart Demon Hunting Inc._

It took her some time to realize that she was at Wolfram & Hart. Unlike Lonny, she didn't know the building very well and could have easily mistaken it for a random office building. As she walked down the hallways she noticed some people were looking at her strangely. Probably because of her resemblance with her great-grandmother. She wondered if she had landed at a time when the original Fred was still alive. She hoped so. She made her way instinctually towards Angel's office.

Harmony's desk was empty, but, unlike Lonny she couldn't tell whether that was strange or not and she didn't dare enter Angel's office without being announced. It just wasn't polite. She decided to try and find the employees' break room - maybe Harmony was out for lunch. When she turned on her heels, she let out a small scream coming face to face with the person she was looking for, but looking slightly different from the one she had met. With black hair, black clothes, dark make-up, black pretty much everything, Harmony looked annoyed.

"What do you want?" she snapped at her.

"I...," Fred 2 couldn't find her words.

"Can't you talk straight?" Harmony looked exasperated.

"Angel, I need to see Angel," she said quickly.

"Whatever," she grabbed her by the arm and practically dragged her to the door of Angel's office and opening it pushed her inside yelling for Angel to hear: "The brat said she wants to see you."

Fred 2 stumbled inside the office. Angel looked at her curiously. He was sitting in his chair, seeming oblivious to the state his office was in: the desk was turned over and papers were scattered on the floor. In a chair with a broken back, was a teenage girl Fred 2 didn't recognize. She had gotten up from her chair the moment Fred 2 had entered the room. She was tall, pretty, with dark hair and eyes to match it. She had - as much as Fred 2 could guess by her features - some Amerindian blood in her. Several strands of her hair - colored in vivid colors - were tied around a beautiful feather. Something seemed very familiar about her, like she had seen her or someone who looked like her in somebody else's pictures.

"I'm sorry, I didn't want to...," Fred 2 began apologizing.

"Are you Annie?" Angel asked interrupting her.

"Yes...I'm-I'm Annie, " Fred 2 smiled. Annie was her mother.

"I'm Angel and this," she gestured towards the girl standing opposite him: "Is my niece, Kalee."

_Location: Sunnydale  
Year: 2003_

Mina looked at the moldy old rug with a satisfied grin on her face. She had buried Spike under it, wrapped in the dirty sheets and had placed the rug there so the obvious shoveling couldn't be noticed. She had flipped the mattress on the other side, cleaned herself up as good as she could - a little useful spell she had learnt had helped her a lot - and now, complimenting herself on a job well done, she headed upstairs. She accidentally hit someone with the door and she hurried to apologize:

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to...," she let out a small scream when she saw who exactly she had hit. It was Spike. Conscious. Clean, without a bruise, without a cut, and definitely not lying a foot underground in the basement.

"Calm down, luv," Spike said cheerfully. He didn't recognize the girl, but assumed she was a potential, she didn't really recall them all.

"But how...," Mina stared back towards the basement.

"Vampire stealth. Didn't mean to scare you," he said before, under Mina's horrified gaze, he headed downstairs. She felt his arm brushing against hers on his way down. He was real. But how? She closed the door to the basement and headed for the living room. She noticed all the potentials were gathered there. She rolled her eyes, it was probably another speech. She was too tired to even fake an interest in it.

"And that," she heard Buffy saying and saw her gesturing towards her. "Is our latest addition, Mina. She's a good fighter. Mina, this is Angel," she introduced her to the vampire.

"Is it just me or have we met before?" Angel asked smiling.

"I don't think so," Mina's mouth was dry. This couldn't be Angel because in the slayer history - she knew! - Angel wasn't there. That could mean only one thing: someone, namely Angel, had come to stop her. Well, she told herself, she wasn't going to go down without a fight.

In the basement, Spike immediately smelled the blood - his blood - and the stench of rattled earth. He also noticed the rug that hadn't been there before. The rug, he remembered very well had been stuffed somewhere in a corner of the basement. He lifted the rug and smiled when he saw he had been right: the ground had been shoveled. Finding the deformed shovel - that, he didn't find strange at all, many tools in Buffy's house were in that state being used more than once as weapons - he began digging. When he came across the bloody sheets, he pulled them aside and was disturbed to see himself, in very bad shape. He was still alive, but it would take some time for his body to heal the damage. He smiled as he began covering the sheets with earth again. His past self was out of the game. He assumed the girl that had exited the basement had done that to him - he chuckled, no wonder she had been so shocked to see him - so it was only safe to assume that had been Mina Parker.

He had two choices now: he either told Angel about this and that would be a good enough reason for Buffy to throw Mina out or - and this was a far better option - he could continue to act like the Spike of the past and spend as much time as he could with Buffy until Angel managed to convince the slayer of Mina's bad intentions. He didn't even have to think about it twice. His choice was made. He put the rug back in its place and threw himself in his old bed and smiled. Maybe she could even help Mina a bit out. Not to complete her plan of course - he grimaced remembering the pain the Hur'dha could inflict upon him through his amulet - but at least to delay his departure back into the future.

_Location: The Hollow Crossroads  
Time: Absolutely nowhen_

"I think I finally got it right," Wes 2 announced a very bored Harmony. He had discovered that if he wrote on his clothes, the writing didn't disappear. He figured it was because he belonged to a certain time which couldn't be said about anything in that place.

"We can go home?" Harmony asked full of hope.

"Yeah, though there might be a small error in the equations, I can't really do calculus with ten decimals in my mind," he explained.

"Who cares! I'm going anywhere but here," she said getting up from the ground where she had been sulking. "Just point the way, little man."

"That way," he gestured towards a crossroad. "It's better if you grab my hand, we won't get separated that way."

"Okay, but I don't date anyone living," she warned him while they headed towards the crossroad.

"Don't worry, I don't date the undead," he assured her and Harmony pouted.

"What, I'm not attractive enough for you?" she asked feeling somehow insulted.

"It's not that, I just...don't like to date someone who might think of me as lunch," he explained before, holding hands, they disappeared from the crossroad, into the past. Just as they vanished, the Hur'dha materialized himself. Sighing - a most unnatural gesture for him - he mumbled:

"This just isn't my day."

_End Part 7_


	9. Bloody Mary with a dash of flame

**Part 8  
Bloody Mary with a dash of flame**

_Los Angeles  
Location: The Underground of Wolfram & Hart Demon Hunting Inc  
Year: Static Time - no precise date_

"Au!" Harmony let out when they hit the hard cement floor of a long hallway. She unclenched her hand from around Wes 2's and began walking down the corridor occasionally yelling a: "Hello?" to which only the echoes replied. Wes 2 limped behind her, trying his best to not be left behind.

"Do you recognize this place?" Wes 2 asked when Harmony stopped and frowned looking around as if searching for something.

"No," she let out an unnecessary sigh. "But I think it's Wolfram & Hart."

"How can you tell?" he asked while arranging his glasses on his nose.

"The logo, duh," she pointed towards a symbol high up on the wall.

"Hmm, I wouldn't have spotted it," he admitted as Harmony began walking again.

"Of course not, you have lame human eyesight," she said as she distanced herself further away from him. The hallway came to a dead end not far away. When she reached it, Harmony let out a small scream.

"What is it?" Wes 2 caught up with her. She was staring at a small window in an iron door where two horrifyingly cruel eyes were staring out.

"I know where we are," Harmony suddenly said. "This is the place...the one no one's suppose to be talking about, but of course everyone talks about it. The unmentionables department. This is where Wolfram & Hart hides all its dirty little secrets."

"Dirty little secrets?" he asked confused. "Like documents? Powerful books?"

"Like employees gone psycho," Harmony explained.

"Who's that?" he asked looking at the small window in the iron door.

"That's the jerk that wanted to send Spike to hell," she stuck out her tongue at Mathias Pavayne. "C'mon, you can do whatever you want. He can't do a thing about it. Angel said so."

"Why is he smiling?" Wes 2 asked staring at Pavayne.

"That's weird. He probably got stuck that way," Harmony lifted her shoulders. A horrible hysterical laughter suddenly echoed in the hallway and Wes 2 looked around terrified. Harmony took a few steps closer to him. From his cell, Pavayne continued to smile and if he had had a voice to speak he would have taunted them: "She's gonna get you..."

_Los Angeles  
Location: Wolfram & Hart Demon Hunting Inc  
Year: 2051_

"I'd offer you a seat, but I'm short on chairs," Angel apologized gesturing around his almost destroyed office.

"Have mine, I was just leaving," Kalee offered her chair giving Angel a look that seemed sad - almost begging - to Fred 2.

"Don't," Angel said in an attempt to stop her, but obviously he was at a loss for words, something the girl seemed to be disappointed by. "You can't leave before we discuss this further. What you're planning to do it irresponsible."

"What is? The fact that I'm leaving? Or that I'm leaving with Spike?" Kalee asked with a mocking smile. "So far everything you've told me are lousy excuses over even lousier excuses. Give me one reason to stay."

"Tell me one of your reasons to leave," Angel replied calmly. Fred 2 stood aside and watched them with a combination of stupefaction and confusion. Since when did Angel have a niece? Was Kalee some sort of descendent of Angel from his days as a mortal? Or did it have something to do with the strange story she had heard about a certain Connor, son of Angel?

"Since you actually bothered to wonder, let's just say I feel like I can no longer evolve here. That my evolution has come to a screeching halt," she stared at Angel as if her words had more than one meaning.

"I can't offer you more than I already have, Kalee," he said firmly, holding her gaze.

"Fine," she seemed very disappointed and obviously saddened. "Then there is no other reason for me to stay," she headed for the office doors. "Nice meeting you," she told Fred 2 distracted when she passed her by. Angel sighed heavily - like a person who had a heavy burden on his heart and then turning towards Fred 2 he forced a smile.

"How was your trip?" he asked and Fred 2 smiled weakly.

_Location: The Hollow Crossroads  
Time: Absolutely nowhen_

"How could you let this happen?" Willow looked at the Hur'dha that paced in front of her looking slightly guilty.

"I have a lot of things on my mind, I can't think of everything. How was I suppose to guess those children would start running off instead of staying put like they were told?" he asked looking up at her. The witch shook her head.

"As many years as you've been here with nothing better to do but watch people's lives, have you really learnt nothing about human nature?" she asked and then sighed: "I only agreed with your idea to bring them here because I thought you were somehow going to prohibit them from using the crossroads."

"The crossroads cannot be closed to anyone. If a person enters here, it has free access into the past. I thought you knew that much," the Hur'dha explained. "As for understanding human nature... why should I? I am not human," he smiled.

"Do you know where they went?" she asked looking around at the many crossroads in the horizon.

"Of course," he said rising his eyes from the ground. "You shouldn't worry about them. The boy is very close to finding the way back. With numbers, who would've thought? As for the other two, the vampire slayer has a plan that will take her and the little one home. Though it will upset time a great deal. But I think I've solved that problem quite easily."

"At least you've solved something," she mumbled. "What about Rupert?"

"Oh, I'm afraid he's still a threat and by solving one problem, I've worsened another," he explained.

"How exactly did you solve Lonny's problem?" Willow asked frowning.

_Los Angeles  
Location: Wolfram & Hart Demon Hunting Inc  
Year: 2051_

She stared at the wall with a look of frustration in her eyes. Here she was, 32 years into the past, trying to do what a certain trouble making slayer had done just two days ago in her time. Except, she told herself smiling, that certain slayer hadn't been the daughter of Charles Gunn, one of the few people besides Angel who knew all the secrets of his private apartment vault.

She touched the wall with her hand, tracing a peculiar pattern across it while saying:

"Una era, dome et, jackame juia tois - danna me! danna me!" The illusion of the wall disappeared and the huge metallic vault appeared before her. She searched the wall, a bit uncertain of where exactly the panel she was looking for was situated. She had been 12 when her father had explained it all to her. Finally finding the spot, she knocked on the metal and said, in a clear voice: "Angel Investigations. We help the helpless."

A metallic panel slid open and a white square appeared behind it.

"Full name please," a computerized female voice asked.

"Alonna Charlene Gunn," she said pressing her palm onto the white square. She felt a small sting in various parts of her hand as the computer retrieved blood samples.

"Accessing Wolfram & Hart database. Searching... searching...Gunn family tree found. Alonna Charlene Gunn. Type 2 vampire," the computer said and then made a screeching noise as the computerized female voice was replaced by that of a very familiar man: "Welcome to the big man's safe, honey. Don't make any trouble and don't forget, daddy loves you."

"Love you too, dad," Lonny placed a small kiss on the top of her fingers and then pressed them on the white square. The giant metal door opened and she found herself staring into a gigantic chamber with tall walls covered in metallic drawers, all of them, as she soon found out, locked. Various other safes were grouped in the middle of the room. If she remembered correctly the walls of safes were merely a fake front which only Angel could open easily, everyone else would have to pick the locks of each and every one of them before being allowed to pass beyond it. She sighed. She had no idea where to start and exactly how much time she had on her hands. Angel could have returned any moment and he would surely wonder what she was doing there without his permission.

As she walked among the safes, something caught her eye. A lone object had been left carelessly on top of a safe. As she neared it, she looked at it surprised:

"Well I'll be damned, what are the odds...," she said smiling as she picked up a ring with feathers hanging from it, labeled 'the ring of Batt-Hura". This was her lucky day. As she exited the vault and made sure everything was closed properly, she told herself there was only one thing she had to do now: find Fred 2. What she didn't know was that in fact the ring she was clutching in her hand was not the original one - that was still tucked away safely in Angel's private vault awaiting the day when Mina Parker would steal it - but a second one manufactured by the Hur'dha who had anticipated her plan. If Lonny had stolen the original ring, then Mina wouldn't have found it in the future and it would have canceled her intervention in their lives and that of the Hur'dha and the Hollow Crossroads. Which in turn would have negated Lonny's presence in the past and thusly create a time knot. An unexplainable situation that only created trouble especially for the blue keeper of the Hollow Crossroads.

_Los Angeles  
Location: Wolfram & Hart Demon Hunting Inc  
Year: 2051_

She thought her name was very strange. Fred 2. She sounded like someone's cheap copy. Pretending all day to be her mother had eventually made her wonder why she had named her that? Annie was a much more prettier name... Or why hadn't they simply called her Winnie or Win, why Fred 2? Sure, she looked like her great-grandmother, but still. She was at least relieved that only her family called her that. During the years, in their family's inner circle, their names had deviated and hers had become from Fred 2, Fretoo and Wes 2 had become Westo - a name she knew her brother, a lover of British formality, hated with all his heart.

She sighed and looked at the clock on the nightstand. It was 1 AM and she still couldn't sleep. She didn't understand why, she usually had no trouble falling asleep. The time travel, she supposed, had gotten to her. She got up from the bed. She was in a room in Angel's penthouse apartment. One that seemed to have never been lived in. She had been surprised at how different the apartment seemed from the one she had visited 32 years into the future. This apartment actually looked lived in, not only used to occasionally sleep in. There was an actual TV in sight, fashion magazines, CDs, food, used dishes, sticky notes on the fridge, pictures...It was obvious that Angel didn't live alone, but with his niece, this mysterious Kalee Fred 2 had never heard about. She supposed it was because she appeared at a time when her great-grandparents had already retired.

She decided that maybe a glass of milk would help her sleep better, so she wanted to head for the kitchen, but as soon as she opened the door she froze in the spot. With the door barely cracked she could see the couch in the living room, but that hadn't been what had surprised her. Standing behind the couch, in the dark, Angel, with his chest bare was holding Kalee in his arms, kissing her tenderly. The girl seemed fully lost in his arms with her hands laying limp around his waist.

"Don't leave me," Fred 2 heard his whisper breaking the silence. She closed the door slowly with her heart pounding in her ears and her face red. It occurred to her that Angel could probably hear her heart if it was beating so fast so she tried to calm herself down as she headed back to bed. She couldn't figure out what was happening anymore. She couldn't have guessed that Kalee's origins were far away from Angel's, but that they were close to his heart.

_Location: Sunnydale  
Year: 2003_

Dinner had been noisy, a gathering of overzealous teenage girls, anxious, a little frightened of what the next day could bring. Angel had observed the scene from his chair next to Buffy, only half-listening to the slayer's words. He was too busy watching Mina's every gesture. He was just looking for an excuse to accuse her of plotting something behind Buffy's back, but she seemed to be aware of Angel's expectations and just to annoy him more acted as natural and as innocently naiv as a teenager could be.

"Are you trying to make me jealous?" Buffy's voice echoed in his ears and he turned to look at her surprised. "You've been staring at her since she walked into the living room. You could at least be less obvious."

"Oh...," he chuckled. "It's not what you think. She just reminds me very much of someone I used to know. The resemblance is astonishing."

"And who was this someone to you?" Mina asked betraying the fact that she had been following their conversation. Everyone at the table was suddenly quiet. None of the potentials had dared to speak to Angel since his appearance at the Summers' Home. Kennedy gave Mina an annoyed look, bothered by the fact that she had broken this circle of silence.

"Someone I killed a long time ago," he returned the cold daring stare Mina had given him. "In a rather horrible, excruciating way."

"A kill out of pleasure?" Mina asked, a small smile playing on her lips.

"Oh, no," Angel didn't break eye contact with her. "She stole something from me."

"How could she have stolen something from you? Weren't you the worst vampire of them all? What did they call you? The scourge of Europe?" she asked leaning back in her chair.

"She was a slayer," he explained smiling.

"Well no one likes a thief," she replied and looking away from him returned to the conversation she was having with Amanda. The silence was broken again and it was suddenly as loud as it had been before.

"What was that all about?" Buffy asked frowning.

"I told you...," he began, but the slayer interrupted him:

"Don't act like I don't know you. You were this close to throwing the table out of the way and beating her senseless. A memory doesn't do that to you. Unless you're slightly psychotic, which as far as I know you're not."

"I just don't like her," Angel said in a low voice.

"Fine," she said implying that she wasn't going to insist if he didn't want to tell her the reason he hated Mina. "Just don't start throwing knifes at her, okay? At least wait another day till this whole thing blows over or we're dead. We need all the help we can get."

"I know," Angel said looking into her eyes - her green wonderful eyes - and smiling. It was beginning to get to him. Now, more than ever, he thought that keeping Spike at a distance had been a wise decision. If he was beginning to be affected by her presence, he could only imagine how the blond vampire would have reacted.

_Los Angeles  
Location: The Underground of Wolfram & Hart Demon Hunting Inc  
Year: Static Time - no precise date_

Behind one hallway, there was another, then another, then another. It didn't take Wes 2 long to realize the entire floor was shaped like a maze. The crazy laughter of a foreign presence - a woman or at least a female of some sort Wes 2 supposed - could still be heard on occasions echoing in the empty corridors. Other than that, there was only silence. Not one sound came from the locked cells and it all made Wes 2 wonder if they were even occupied.

"You're sure you don't know what year we're in?" he asked Harmony.

"This place doesn't really change. Ever. Angel told me there's something wrong with time here cause some of these things are more dangerous dead than alive," she hadn't really paid much attention to the vampire when he had told her the details.

"So we're in a place where time is being manipulated. Wonderful, of all the places we could've landed in, we wind up here," he sighed frustrated. Unfortunately his calculus and equations could do him no good in this place. They needed to somehow return to the Hollow Crossroads. But first they needed to get out of this underground labyrinth.

"I think it's only inside the cells," Harmony said unsure.

"That's a plus, at least we can't say we're walking down the same hallway over and over again," Wes 2 said as they reached a place where the corridor split in two again. He noticed something on the wall, but thought it was only his imagination until they came closer to it. The wall was covered in 7s written in what he suspected was blood.

"Oh, crap," Harmony let out when she saw it.

"Does it ring a bell?" he asked looking back at her.

"Yeah..." she said staring down the hallway suddenly feeling very uneasy. "It happened like 2 or 3 years ago. This lunatic from accounting winded up down here one day and totally fell for one of them," she gestured towards the doors.

"He fell in love with someone locked down here?" Wes 2 asked surprised. "He actually entered one of the chambers?"

"Nah, it had one of those little windows. So anyway, he was soooo crazy about her that he actually opened the door and then...," she trailed off.

"What?" Wes 2 didn't understand what she wanted to suggested.

"She turned him into shishkebab," Harmony explained. "Before they put her away she was up to 6."

"Huh?" he still didn't understand and Harmony rolled her eyes frustrated.

"She was Mary 7, the psycho slayer bitch from hell?" she acted like he was suppose to recognize this girl instantly, which he did not. He couldn't have known that Mary 7 was a slayer whose file the SA had hidden deep within their archives. Sighing, Harmony began explaining: "Mary 7. Half-demon, half-human. The human side got the slayer package, the demon side turned her all psycho. Acted like a totally normal person. She got up every morning, the 7th person she met anywhere she turned into little bits and pieces. And then she started from 1 again. Real sicko."

"Why didn't they just kill her?" Wes 2 asked curious.

"They tried, but the SA was breathing down our necks. They wanted to rehabi...uhm..." she couldn't remember the word.

"Rehabilitate her?" he guessed.

"Yeah. But that didn't work out," she chuckled. "She butchered like a dozen watchers and twice as many slayers. So eventually, they brought her back here. Angel, the big softy, couldn't kill her so he put her down here."

"And then she was freed," he realized.

"Bingo. And everyone was a seven after that. Blaze said she actually counted everyone she saw while she was locked up. Freak," she shivered. "Started making up for all the 7s she didn't kill. She never made it out of here though. She took out half the ops until Angel managed to kill her."

"And let me guess that's where we landed. I hope Fred's having more luck than me," he said looking around nervously.

_Location: Sunnydale  
Year: 2003_

She was alone in the kitchen, having offered to clean the dishes by herself. Angel watched her from the doorway for a moment before approaching her. She sensed him immediately, not that he was trying to be discreet.

"Something wrong?" she asked a small smile playing on her lips. He looked serious. Deadly serious and it only amused her even more.

"Get out while you still can," he said in a calm voice.

"Is that a threat?" Mina asked turning towards him, the smile never leaving her face.

"I'm not here to make threats...," he began, but she rudely interrupted him:

"Oh, no, of course not. Horrible, excruciating death. I believe those were your words," she pointed out.

"I don't understand why you're doing this. I saw your file. You're among the best of the best, any slayer would kill to be like you and you just want to throw that out the window? For what? For your overgrown ego? I think you could find better things to do with your time," he said in a serious tone.

"How I spend my free time is none of your business. Like it's none of my business what you do with yours, though I did hear a couple of awful things about your off-program activities," she said smiling.

"It's all lies and you know it," he said frowning.

"Disadvantage of a public life. Wouldn't you just love it if you didn't have to stand for any of it? Wouldn't you just love it if you could walk the streets like you used to?" she asked turning back towards the sink. There was a moment of silence. "I know you would," she answered for him: "Sure, you're doing a lot more good as CEO of Wolfram & Hart, but the feeling, it's not quite the same, is it? Not what you felt in the streets, saving a damsel in distress, getting to know the people. It's like comparing homemade chocolate with the one that's made in factories. It might taste the same, but the one you get from your aunt's, grandmother's, mother's hands can't be compared to the one you buy with 2.95$ in any store. Me," she looked up at him. "I'm an old fashioned girl. I want my chocolate homemade. Do you think I like having my picture up on all those stupid sites? And care anything for all those idiotic girls who just wished they were like me? Do you think that makes me... I don't know, a star? Some stupid popstar that everyone wants to know who she's sleeping with? No, it makes an idol. A piece of shit up on the walls of teenagers that can't think for themselves. Am I that wrong in wanting to simply do my job right?"

"No one told you to step into the lights," Angel said leaning on the table. "No one forced you to join the SA. You could've done your job in the streets like you wanted to."

"You think?" she smirked. "The SA practically hunts us down. Have you ever seen a slayer that's not in the SA?"

"No, but...," he began, but she once again interrupted him.

"Even your precious Buffy was in the SA, remember? Back in the day," she started the water as she continued to wash the dishes. "This is the only way."

"What you're trying to do, it'll make more damage than good," he warned her.

"I'll tell you when I'll start caring," she said coldly.

"I will take you down if I have to," he said.

"Uh the big bad vampire's gonna get me, excuse me while I pee in my pants," she said mockingly. Angel watched her for a moment before exiting the kitchen. Standing outside, in the backyard, Spike had heard most of their conversation and wondered if Mina was so wrong in wanting to be the one and only slayer.

_End Part 8_


	10. All consuming fire

**Part 9  
All consuming fire**

_Location: Sunnydale  
Year: 2003_

"Hey," he said and she started slightly.

"Hey," she returned the salute. "I must be getting slow. Didn't feel you."

"You've got a lot on your mind," Angel said coming closer to her.

"Always did," she smiled. "Probably why I was never really the shiny bulb in my class."

"You seemed shiny enough to me," he smiled.

"Yeah, but you didn't get out much back then," she pointed out. "So tell me why you came back. Wanted to play hero?"

"I came back here for you," he answered honestly.

"Good. 'Cause for a moment there, I thought this was a macho thing and you just came back here to steal Spike's center stage in the big battle just 'cause him and me, you know...," she trailed off.

"I might be a bit jealous, but I..," he began and Buffy chuckled.

"A bit," she repeated amused.

"If it were anyone else...," he started again.

"You'd beat him senseless?" she reminded him about the incident with Riley.

"Touche," he smiled.

"Are you planning on wearing the amulet yourself?" she asked serious now.

"No, I don't want to steal any of Spike's glory," he said and added in his thoughts that he didn't feel like burning up in the hellmouth either. "Besides, I think it would be pretty hard to take it from him now. I'd be pulling from one side, he'd be pulling from the other...It'd turn out pretty ugly, punches, blood, a kick here, a kick there and probably no souled vampire conscious enough to wear it at the end of the battle. "

"I think it'd be pretty hard for him to give it up now. He got very...attached to it. He feels like the fate of the world depends on it or something," she said and stretched before turning to look at him. "I just hope everything goes well."

"That much," he smiled. "I can promise you."

"Somehow, you sound very convincing," she returned the smile.

"I am," he replied. "Convinced."

"I know I didn't want you here for this before, but now that you came uninvited, you make me feel, I don't know, protected. Like Big Brother's watching over me. Okay, maybe more like Big Ex. Ugh, that didn't sound right," she chuckled. Close to her now, Angel allowed himself to hug her.

"I wouldn't want to be anywhere else," he whispered and wondered in his mind how he had actually brought himself to leave her before this big battle, knowing full well what she was up against. He couldn't believe how good she felt in his arms, how soft her hair was, how much he simply wanted to hold her tight. He broke the embrace. They both stared in the horizon in silence for a moment, after which Angel asked: "You really don't think something's wrong with Mina?"

"You're hopeless," she stared at him amused. "If you at least gave me a reason to not trust her, I would actually stop and think about it."

"Doesn't she seem different from the rest?" Angel asked ignoring the bad memories the words 'reason to do something' brought up inside him. "Stronger, with, you know, an attitude problem and a head bigger than the Empire State Building?"

"A little hint: that doesn't make her evil. Look at Faith. Wait, bad example," she thought about it for a moment, then added: "Okay, look at me. We both know I had my share of attitude problems. I won't go as far as the whole big head thing, but I had a few issues too. As far as strength goes, I haven't seen enough to have an opinion, but I do know she was trained a hell lot more than the rest of the lot. Why I think she's a nice addition to our little crew."

"Just be careful around her," Angel insisted.

"I will," she assured him.

After Angel left, Spike took the opportunity to talk to Buffy alone as well. He didn't speak a word, instead wrapping his arms around the slayer's waist in a loving embrace.

"I thought you...," Buffy began saying as she turned her head towards him, but stopped when she saw it was Spike. "Hi."

"Haven't seen you all day," he whispered in her ear.

"It's been a busy day," she replied leaning her head on his shoulder. He wanted to ask her whether she hadn't avoided him because of Angel, but didn't want to ruin the moment.

"Tomorrow's going to be even more busy," he pointed out, enjoying the sensation of her hair touching his cheek.

"Busy. Deadly. Cataclysmic. Pick one," she said closing her eyes briefly.

"You can't sleep, can you?" he asked her turning her towards him.

"On a night like this, do I look insane? Or like Anya? Which, let's face it, sometimes is one and the same," she said smiling.

"I wish I could simply hold you in my arms all night," he said caressing her cheek.

"I can't...," she began, but Spike interrupted her:

"I know," it was too awkward for her to sleep with him while Angel was in the house. "How about a kiss then?"

"Spike, I...," she bit her lip looking over his shoulder at the house. She didn't have a chance to finish her phrase as Spike kissed her. Deeply, hungrily, showing just how much he had missed her over the long years. But Buffy couldn't know anything about that, about the empty years, the desperate search for a mate who could rise up to her level and the miserable failures of all the relationships he had ever started after losing her.

She was the one who broke the kiss.

"I wish I could sleep," she whispered into his ear as she hugged him.

"I wish time would just stop," he whispered in such a low voice that only he heard his own words leaving his mouth.

_Los Angeles  
Location: Wolfram & Hart Demon Hunting Inc  
Year: 2051_

Fred 2 was walking down the hallway leading to Angel's office when she noticed them. Staying out of the way of the passing Wolfram & Hart employees, standing casually near the wall, Kalee was talking to Spike. The vampire seemed baffled by what the girl was telling him. Fred 2 stopped in her tracks, wondering what they were talking about. Kalee had intended to leave with Spike, but after what Fred 2 had seen the previous night, she suspected Kalee had probably changed her mind. An irritated look passed over Spike's features. Fred 2 thought she probably looked awkward standing there in the middle of the hallway, staring at them. Luckily for her, they seemed too concerned with their conversation to notice her.

Then suddenly a deep hatred filled Spike's eyes and passing abruptly by Kalee, the vampire marched towards Angel's office in anger.

"Spike!" Kalee yelled after him, but she did not call a second time, but instead shook her head, pained, and left the hallway by the quickest route. Fred 2, snapping out of her contemplation rushed towards Angel's office just in time to see the blond vampire storm inside it almost throwing the door off its hinges as an indifferent black clad Harmony yelled after him:

"He's in a meeting!"

The next thing she heard - probably everyone on the floor heard - was Spike's voice, loud as thunder, screaming:

"You slept with her didn't you, you fucking asshole!"

The door to the office suddenly opened startling everyone who had been staring at it curiously and a group of men and women in suits exited. Spike had crashed the Wolfram & Hart weekly board meeting. In the split second when the last person left the office and the door was closed again Fred 2 saw Angel, sitting behind his desk, looking coldly at Spike, who stood, boiling in anger, in front of him. Then the door closed and the scene disappeared from in front of her eyes. A hand suddenly grabbed her from behind, startling her.

"Boo," Lonny said smiling. "I've been looking for you."

_Los Angeles  
Location: The Underground of Wolfram & Hart Demon Hunting Inc  
Year: Static Time - no precise date_

He heard the footsteps after a while, being convinced at first that they were merely the echoes of his and Harmony's footsteps. But then he realized that they sounded different from his own. Like someone walking through mud. The footsteps stopped when theirs did and that mad laughter filled the hallways on that occasion, sending chills up his spine.

He became even more alarmed when he saw bloody footprints on the floor that went on for a few feet, then disappeared. The blood, he feared, was what he had called mud. Harmony looked at them and stepped closer to Wes 2:

"It's human," she told him.

"The blood?" he asked and she nodded. "Can you follow the trail?"

"You seriously want me to?" she looked at him hesitantly. "What if it leads to psycho bitch?"

"Footprints are headed in that direction," Wes 2 pointed behind them. "That means her victims must be up ahead. You said she took out half the special ops team. Maybe they had walkie-talkies or something to communicate with the upper levels. We could call for help."

"What if it's the idiot from accounting's blood?" Harmony asked.

"Let's try and be optimistic, Harmony, shall we?" Wes 2 said as he began walking down the corridor again. Somewhere behind them, he could still hear the empty echoes of someone's footsteps.

_Location: Sunnydale  
Year: 2003_

It was already morning and the last preparations were being made. Soon, the whole group was going to head down to Sunnydale High and battle an army of supervampires. And some of them, Spike thought sadly, were not going to live to see another dawn. He looked at Anya in particular, because with all her faults and strangeness she had always been a sort of kindred demon spirit among the Scoobies.

"What? Do I have something on my teeth?" Anya asked when she noticed he was staring at her.

"No, I just...," he began, but the ex- demon ignored him and continued:

"Cause I wouldn't want to die with chocolate or something on my teeth. Can you imagine how embarrassing it would be? I bet Joan of Arc didn't have anything on her teeth when they burnt her at the stake. But then again that was way back in the dark ages and hey, everyone had bad teeth, right?" she sighed. "I really wanted to see the execution, but I had this little massacre in China I just couldn't miss."

"You're nervous," Spike noticed she was babbling more than usual.

"Well, duh, it's not everyday the world could end and you could very well die...Actually, this being the Hellmouth and all, that's not as important as I thought it would sound," Anya rose her shoulders and left the room.

"Won't be for long, luv," the blond vampire said and looking through the kitchen doorway saw Buffy discussing something with Angel.

"Don't forget the amulet," Willow told him as she passed him by.

"Oh, bloody hell," he just remembered his past self and the amulet were still buried in the basement. Because of Angel, Buffy hadn't slept down there where she might have noticed Mina's handy work. She had slept somewhere among the potentials. He went down the stairs, into the basement and found an unexpected presence: Mina.

"Well, well, if it isn't little miss Slayer Perfection 2083," Spike said smiling. "I have to admit, I didn't expect to find you here. After that little stunt you pulled yesterday I thought you wouldn't be caught dead down here."

"So I was right. He didn't come alone," Mina said as she stared at the Spike she had just dug up and then up at the one standing in front of her. "Are you gonna help me or not?" she asked gesturing towards his past self.

"Lucky for you I was planning on doing the same thing," he said as he searched the basement for a plastic bag. Finding one big and strong enough he helped Mina put his past self, the amulet dangling from his neck, inside it.

"You gonna kill me, Spike?" the slayer asked him when they were done. "I know Angel doesn't have the guts for it, but you...I don't know."

"I was actually thinking of helping you, but somehow...it just wouldn't feel right," Spike said lighting a cigarette.

"You didn't tell Angel about this," Mina realized.

"You would've been out of the house a long time ago if I had," Spike assured her.

"Does he even know it's you?" Mina asked chuckling.

"Not yet," Spike said. "But I'm confident he'll figure it out before the big show."

"And all this for the love of a slayer. How weird is that for a vampire?" Mina asked sitting down on Spike's bed.

"You can't even imagine," he smiled.

"Think about it, you could practically be destroying the world," Mina pointed out. "And for what? A kiss."

"Several actually," Spike let out an unnecessary sigh.

"You're one twisted vamp, you know that?" Mina smiled as she got up. "Well, I'll see you around. I got a slayer to stop."

"Good luck with that," Spike said as he looked back towards the bag containing his past self. Mina walked up the stairs and out of the basement. He stared at his lit cigarette for a moment as if contemplating finishing it or not and then threw it down into the hole where his past self had been buried. He picked up the heavy sack and headed upstairs.

"What's that?" Kennedy asked when she saw the bag.

"A very nifty weapon," Spike mumbled.

_Location: The Hollow Crossroads  
Time: Absolutely nowhen_

"The time of truth has come," the Hur'dha told Willow as he looked around at all the crossroads. "Time to see if your heroes succeed."

"What exactly happens if they fail?" Willow asked following his gaze.

"Time changes. It's like a tidal wave. Horrifying experience. I've lived through a few. Two of which one of the souled vampires was responsible for," Hur'dha said looking back at the witch. "The one with the angelic face."

"Angel? He changed time?" she seemed surprised.

"Once because of this slayer he seems to care so much about and another time because of his son," he explained.

"His son? Angel had a son?" she was actually shocked.

"It's a long story. When you and I will have an eternity to talk I'll tell you everything about it," he promised her. "You still think they can stop her?"

"I'd say yes, but I'm afraid you already know the answer and you're just teasing me," the witch said glaring at the Hur'dha.

"I might," he smiled.

_Sunnydale  
Year: 2003_

_Location: Sunnydale High_

"Okay, potentials in the basement. Follow Faith and Spike," Buffy said looking at the teenage girls gathered around her. Faith and Spike, still holding the heavy bag over his shoulder, started walking down the corridor with the potentials behind them. Mina stopped to look hesitantly at Buffy before following the rest. She would have to lose the group somewhere in the basement.

"Angel...," Buffy turned towards the vampire to discover he was gone. "Where is he?" she asked but no one seemed to have noticed when the vampire had disappeared. "Of all the times he could've bailed on me...," she trailed off, but then noticed Angel at the end of the hallway gesturing towards another corridor. He was going to follow the potentials. "My bad," Buffy said turning back towards the others.

As they headed towards the seal of Danthazar through the dark underground corridors, Mina slipped away from the group easily and unnoticed by the rest. Only Spike saw her blending into the shadows of a hidden corner, but he didn't stop walking or say anything. Angel had wanted to do it all himself. Fine, he damn well could. He was just going to make sure his past self was going to play his part and then casually walk out of Sunnydale before it was destroyed and calmly wait for Angel to appear.

Mina walked carefully back towards the entrance of the basement. She had felt Angel close a few times and tried her best to stay out of his way. Luckily for her, it had worked. She went up the stairs and when she opened the door of the basement she came face to face with Buffy.

"What are you doing?" Buffy asked suspiciously.

"Nothing, I...," she had really not counted on this. "I was looking for you. I just wanted to say...good luck."

"Thanks," Buffy said feeling like the moment was more than just a bit awkward. "We should get going," she added passing by Mina down the stairs. The girl didn't move. "Come on!" her voice had been commanding.

"You go," Mina said and a strange smile played on her lips.

"Stop her!" Angel yelled as he came running towards the stairs.

"What..." Buffy turned her head towards Angel, which proved to be a big mistake as Mina took the opportunity to shove her down the stairs and make a run for it. Buffy landed flat on her stomach at the bottom of the stairs. She got up angrily and wanted to go after Mina, but Angel put a hand on her shoulder.

"I'll take care of her. Go," he told her and though Buffy seemed confused and unsure she headed towards the location of the seal. Angel leaped up the stairs and in pursuit of Mina.

During this time, Mina ran down the hallways towards the principal's office. On her way she knocked Anya off her feet and shoved Andrew into a wall. The door of the office was closed, but after giving it a good kick it opened easily. A startled Kennedy looked up at her. Willow was deep within a magical trance.

"Get out," Mina told Kennedy calmly.

"What the hell are you doing here?" the potential asked standing up and facing her defiantly.

"I don't have time for this," Mina said and with a few quick moves made Kennedy bend over in pain. "Now, get out," she grabbed her by the hair and threw her out of the office. Grabbing the chair from behind the principal's desk, she hit Willow over the head with it and as the witch collapsed, Mina grabbed the scythe and threw it out of the office, yelling at Kennedy, just as Angel appeared in front of the office:

"Get the scythe to Buffy!"

"NO!" Angel yelled. In the next moment, a bright light swallowed the souled vampire and he disappeared. Mina smiled victoriously and let out a scream of pure happiness as she vanished. In the basement as the potentials entered the Hellmouth Spike suddenly felt strange. The next moment, he disappeared, leaving the bag that been on his shoulder to tumble in the Hellmouth by itself.

_Los Angeles  
Location: The Underground of Wolfram & Hart Demon Hunting Inc  
Year: Static Time - no precise date_

They had found the source of the blood. Five men, all from the special ops team, were laying dead next to each other on the floor, next to an open door.

"I'm suddenly feeling very hungry," Harmony said as she looked at all the blood. Wes 2 gave her a frightened look. "Oh, I didn't mean you. I wouldn't eat you. Well unless we'd be like stuck on a desert island or something."

"That's a comforting thought," he said, thinking how much similarity there was between a desert island and their current location. He bent down next to one of the bodies and began searching it for a walkie-talkie.

"Uhm, Wes...," Harmony stuttered.

"Hold on, I think I found it," Wes 2 didn't pay attention to her as he seemed to have finally come across the walkie- talkie. As he analyzed it a bit closer he realized it was broken. "We'll have to..." he looked up and swallowed his words when he saw the figure of a teenage girl a few feet in front him, her clothes, her hands, her feet, her mouth all covered in blood. She smiled wickedly as she neared them. A light of insanity shone in her eyes as she said:

"7-7, who's the lucky number 7?" she laughed maniacally as she stalked towards them. Wes 2's heart pounded wildly in his chest. Harmony froze in her place. At that moment the vampire and the teenage boy disappeared in a flash of light.

_Los Angeles  
Location: Wolfram & Hart Demon Hunting Inc  
Year: 2051_

"Let's go," Lonny urged Fred 2, but the young girl looked back at the office hesitantly. She wanted to know what was happening. "Let me guess, you became a fan of the Souled and Immortal show? I leave you alone for one minute..," the vampire shook her head. Before Fred 2 had a chance to say anything, Lonny pulled her by the arm towards the office. "Let's just take a peek then."

They passed by a very indifferent Harmony and Lonny cracked open the door to the office. Both Spike and Angel were too busy arguing to notice the two listening to their conversation:

"You just had to do it, didn't you?" Spike asked staring coldly at the vampire sitting calmly behind his desk. "It just ate you up inside that she was going to leave with me, didn't it? I didn't believe you were capable of stooping this low. Guess I underestimated you."

"This isn't about you, Spike," Angel said looking away from him.

"The hell it isn't," he grimaced. "You were afraid of losing another woman to me, but this time you got it all wrong, tall, dark and gruesome. She was like a daughter to you, you son of a bitch. A daughter to me. And we both know why. She was her blood, the blood of her family. Dawn's blood."

"I know whose blood she is. I was the one who took her in, remember?" Angel interrupted him annoyed.

"It's true she loves you more than she should, loves you as more than a father, but you should have known better. Aren't you old enough to realize what sort of stupid consequences what you did could have on her?" Spike asked furious. There was a long moment of silence. Angel avoided to look in Spike's eyes. The blond vampire smiled: "You know what? I might not be the best person in the world, but I never loved her as anything more than a daughter. And," he chuckled: "I know for a fact you did too. But at least I didn't cross the line just to win some cock-fight between you and me. You, on the other hand, will have to live for the rest of your days with a bitter incestuous taste in your mouth."

"Shut up," Angel muttered.

"Truth hurts, doesn't it? You, taking advantage of a child's crush to beat me down," he snickered and then with disdain in his voice added: "I am leaving. Can't really stand the sight of you right now."

"Good," Angel had a thin smile on his lips. Spike started walking towards the door. "You walk out of this building, Spike, you walk out of this city, you'll never see her or Kalee ever again. I'll make sure of that."

"You can't keep her from me," Spike snapped turning abruptly towards him.

"Watch me," Angel said and the blond vampire stormed out of the office. It was the last encounter between Angel and Spike until the Hur'dha would one day force William the Bloody to return to Los Angeles and Wolfram & Hart.

Alone in his office, Angel let his head fall down in his hands in desperation. Fred 2 realized, shocked, that he was crying. Lonny closed the door of the office, leaving Angel to his misery.

"Satisfied now?" Lonny asked looking at Fred 2.

"But...what's going to happen to them?" the teenager asked confused.

"Spike leaves. Angel never sleeps with Kalee again," Lonny lifted her shoulders indifferently. "I've lived through the whole drama. A to Z. Since Angel adopted Kalee. Agonizing would be the best word to describe it."

"How about Kalee? What happened to her?" Fred 2 asked and at that very moment she vanished along with Lonny.

_Location: The Hollow Crossroads  
Time: Absolutely nowhen_

"What's happening?" Willow asked as she felt the ground beginning to move under her feet.

"Your beloved heroes just failed," the Hur'dha announced her as an invisible tidal wave, born from one point of light, from one crossroad, moved with great speed swallowing the crossroads, one by one, changing time, altering reality. It passed through them and Willow felt a deep coldness rising up inside her, but it did not kill her or change her, it left her the same, because Willow had long stopped being affected by time and space.

_End Part 9_


	11. Ashes I: Of the day

**Part 10**

**Ashes I: Of the day**

_Location: The Hollow Crossroads_

_Time: Absolutely nowhen_

"That's it? The battle's lost?" Willow asked incredulous.

"It was never a battle to begin with. One of wills perhaps, but not what you had in mind with those words," the Hur'dha replied calmly.

"Does anyone remember anything?" she asked, new to this sort of time manipulation.

"Besides you?" he asked with a smile on his face. "But you're not really one of them anymore, are you?"

"Just answer the question," Willow said annoyed. She didn't feel like joking around.

"The girl, she remembers everything. The person that changes time always does," he explained making an elegant gesture to further express his words.

"And the rest?" she asked looking somewhat lost.

"Their actions were annulled. They were never in the past,' he said as he sustained himself on his staff. "Whenever it is manipulated, time tries to adjust to the new changes: in some cases, like that of your heroes and those children, it restored the natural course of the world, thusly erasing their actions in the past. But in the case of those that caused the changes in the timeline, it cannot annul their presence without annulling the changes themselves, so they are left with the memories of what they've done and the timeline they changed."

"So Mina Parker remembers," Willow stated lost in thoughts. She suddenly realized something and got a great idea. "What she did is pointless."

"We both know that, but she doesn't," the Hur'dha said looking at Willow and trying to guess what she was thinking about.

"Well she's about to get a very cold shower," Willow suddenly smiled.

"What are you going to do?" he asked her knowing that smile full well.

"I'm going to give her a lesson that she'll never forget," she said heading towards a crossroad. "You'll help, right?"

"I don't think I have much of a choice," the Hur'dha sighed.

"Good, because what I'm about to do is probably going to destroy time as you know it," she said smiling and her eyes flashed black for an instant.

"You're scary when you talk like that," he said, but his expression didn't change to worry or fright, it remained calm and curious of the redhead's plan. Waving a last goodbye the witch disappeared. The Hur'dha sighed looking in the horizon. Willow was not the most trust worthy person he knew, but when she hatched up a plan, it usually worked. He hoped she would be able to fix the mess he had unintentionally allowed to happen. He had never thought that Mina would be able to pass him by, but the girl had proved to be a worthy match. He frowned when a light portal tore into the fabric of the Hollow Crossroads just a few steps away from him.

The next moment, Lonny landed face down on the hard empty land. The Hur'dha looked at her surprised until he realized something.

"What the...why the hell am I back here again?" Lonny asked clutching the ring of Batt-Hura she had taken from the safe in one hand as she got up. "I didn't use this thing yet," she held up the ring.

"Congratulations, you have just been erased from reality," the Hur'dha said amused.

"What!" Lonny asked incredulously. "Who or what erased me from reality?"

"The girl - that slayer the two vampires went after - she succeeded in her plan. She stopped the spreading of the slayer line," he explained.

"And what, because I'm not a slayer, I don't exist?" she asked confused and annoyed at the same time.

"Actually it goes a little further back then that. Your father faced a vampire at one point in his life, before you were born. He was saved that day by a slayer, but since that slayer was never a slayer to begin with, he died before he had a chance to conceive you," the Hur'dha said calmly.

"So why am I not...gone or somethin'?" she asked feeling a growing anger towards this girl that had, through her actions, taken the life of her father, whom Lonny had loved more than anything in the world.

"Good question," he rose his shoulders. "Some people simply disappear, others become time anomalies."

"Anomaly," she repeated with anger.

"That's right," the Hur'dha nodded.

"I'm gonna kill that bitch!" she suddenly said coldly.

"You won't solve anything by killing her," he warned her.

"And what do you suggest I do?" she asked. She was so angry her hands were beginning to tremble.

"Wait," he suggested. "Willow's..." but he didn't have a chance to finish his phrase as Lonny took off towards the crossroads.

"All right, thing-a-ma-gig, time to work your magic. Get me to Sunnydale," she told the ring of Batt-Hura and as if listening to her the ring came alive and pointed its feathers towards one particular crossroad. Smiling, she ran towards it. "I'm gonna stop that little bitch myself," she muttered as she disappeared.

The Hur'dha sighed:

"Kids."

_New York City_

_Year: 2083_

When she woke up, she was slightly dizzy and didn't recognize her surroundings. It was a big empty building that seemed to be undergoing a general restoration. Brushes, paint, wood, tools of all sorts were scattered everywhere. Luckily for her, no one seemed to be working at the time. Her presence there surprised her. She had thought that when she'd wake up in her time again she'd be somewhere around the area where Sunnydale had once been or somewhere in Los Angeles where she had used the ring of Batt-Hura to enter the past. Remembering the ring, she looked down at her belt and the place she had hung the ring from. It was still there. Though she thought its presence to be strange, considering that the time alteration meant she had never stolen it, she sighed relieved.

She got out of the building and when she found herself on the streets, she closed her eyes satisfied. The world was still there despite the fact that the multitude of slayers was gone. Smiling she turned back towards the building she had exited. Her smile faded. She suddenly knew what building she had landed in: The Museum of Unnatural History. Except it wasn't a museum anymore, but a future mall.

She realized that since there hadn't been a large number of slayers anymore, the Watcher's Council had never outted demons and vampires to the general public. So the Museums of Unnatural History were never founded by the Five Elders of the Watcher's Council, one of which had been Rupert Giles, once the watcher of the greatest slayer that had ever lived, Buffy Summers.

Some sacrifices had to be made, Mina told herself as she began walking down the street. As she passed by buildings noting the small changes that had occurred because of her, she noticed a hooded man walking hurriedly through the crowd. Smoke was coming out from underneath his hood. Mina smiled. A vampire.

She followed him to an abandoned warehouse. She deliberately made a noisy entrance. The vampire looked back at her startled. He hadn't realized he had been followed.

"Hey, smokey, what's up with you walking around in daylight? You under the protection of the HRTV or are you just plain suicidal? Cause if that's the case I can help you out," Mina smiled as she neared him. The HRTV stood for 'Humans for the Rightful Treatment of Vampires', a society of vampire rights activists that often referred to slayers as butchers and murderers.

The vampire looked at her strangely for a moment before, without a word, morphing into his demonic features and attacking her. Mina immediately felt the difference in her own body. She knew the moves, knew how to fight, but the superstrength, the agility, they were gone. Though holding her own against the vampire quite well, she was easily defeated in the end. The vampire was about to bite her when a wooden pillar came flying straight through his chest. He turned to dust, but the pillar still floated above Mina. She quickly got out from under it. She was shocked by what had just happened. She wasn't a slayer anymore. She was a plane, old teenager.

"But nothing's changed," she muttered and a female voice said from a corner of the warehouse:

"Yet everything did," it was Willow. "The hellmouth still closed thanks to the amulet, Spike and Buffy. A lot more potentials died though. Faith and Andrew too. I barely got out," she thought it was strange and amusing at the same time how she could remember both versions of her life. The one after and before Mina had changed the world. "Buffy found a new Watcher's Council, but not the one you later knew as the SA - there is no SA now. Instead of gathering up the slayers, she gathered up the potentials. She had a nice thing going. Kept the world spinning. Angel and Spike continued to fight evil in LA. So the world wasn't really affected on a big scale, but if you think of it individually a lot of people died because no one was there to rescue them. The world only had three big heroes, not a few hundred or thousands."

"Why am I not the slayer?" Mina asked not really caring about the changes the world had undergone as long as the one she had wanted hadn't occurred.

"Have you ever thought, for half a second, that you were not the chosen one?" Willow asked as she neared the girl.

"I am the chosen one," Mina stared at her coldly.

"Doesn't look like it to me," Willow smiled.

"Why am I not the slayer?" Mina repeated the question.

"It could be because you're not the chosen one or...maybe because...what do you know about Buffy?" she interrupted herself to ask, making Mina even more impatient. "About what happened to her after Sunnydale?"

"She founded the Watcher's Council, trained a lot of slayers herself among which Kioko Tanaka, Sonia Mashenka and Angelina Hayes," she named three of the most admired slayers after the great Buffy Summers. "She retired after 30 or 35 years when her niece and her husband died in a plane crash. People say she adopted their orphaned daughter to raise her herself."

"Except that Angel was the one who adopted Dawn's granddaughter," Willow intervened. "At Buffy's request."

"Okay, so she just retired," Mina wanted to go.

"Bingo," the witch grinned. "It appears that if a slayer manages to live through all the battles she has to face in her life she can live up to 20 or 30 years more than your average human. Slayer powers also confer certain longevity."

"That can't be. I mean she'd be like a 100 by now," Mina said in disbelief.

"105 to be more precise," the witch corrected her. "With plenty of years still to go."

"What about Faith? You said she died," Mina said suddenly feeling very desperate.

"She did. But that whole anomaly created by two slayers being alive at the same time was fixed. Faith's powers were passed back onto Buffy," she explained.

"I should've killed her," Mina suddenly realized and without a warning took the ring of Batt-Hura in one hand and yelling: "Nema esta, nema deo, nema tempo ecco jero, vero nento, quera lento, en e tempo mera uno!" she disappeared. Willow looked after her for a moment, then smiled. Everything was going as planned.

_Location: The Hollow Crossroads_

_Time: Absolutely nowhen_

Mina landed gracefully on the empty land. When she looked up she saw the Hur'dha standing in front of her, just as tall and blue as she remembered him to be, holding his wooden staff in one hand.

"Hey, Blue. Long time no see," she said smiling. "You're not going to give me a hard time again, are you?" she asked, not being very sure she could beat the Hur'dha without her slayer powers. Surprisingly, he stepped aside giving her free access to the crossroads. He didn't speak a word to her. "Thanks, big guy," she told him as she passed him by.

She stared at the many crossroads remembering that before she had used the spell from the book of Katurye to enter the past, not the crossroads themselves. As she looked around she suddenly felt the ring moving in her hand and pointing towards a crossroad. She knew it was the one she was looking for and headed towards it. Shortly after, she disappeared.

"I do hope you know what you're doing," the Hur'dha said once she was gone and Willow had reappeared next to him.

"I do," the witch said with a smile.

"Are you giving your heroes another chance?" he asked looking down at her.

"Nope, just trying to make a point," Willow said amused by his curiosity.

"A point that might cost the world a lot---well, the world itself," he pointed out, "A big price.""I don't think it'll come to that," Willow said, confident.

"You're always so sure of yourself," the Hur'dha said sighing: "The world's changing back."

"How come?" Willow asked surprised.

"She can't be present in the past in two forms, so she took over her own body from her previous attempt to change the past. This way, she annulled the effects of the changes she made before," he explained.

"That means Spike and Angel are still in past?" Willow asked and the Hur'dha nodded. "And the kids?"

"Slightly more complicated," he said and Willow gave him a surprised look. "The vampire slayer, the one that's actually a vampire, she changed her trajectory. She used the ring to go to Sunnydale before things changed back. It sent the other girl, the young one, into a time loop. I'm not sure where she landed," Willow looked at him disapprovingly. "I'll fix it, don't worry."

"Why do I think we have too many things not to worry about?" the witch asked amused. The Hur'dha only glared in the horizon without saying a word.

_Location: Sunnydale_

_Year: 2003_

Lonny landed on the empty streets of Sunnydale, very close to the Summers home. For some reason, the ring focused even better on the exact location its possessor wanted to get to. Later on, when the Hur'dha would reclaim possession of this second ring, he would say it was probably because this ring was newer than the other one which, ironically, had lost some of its precision in time.

Lonny stood up and noticed immediately it was daytime. She panicked until she realized that for some reason, the sun did not burn her. She smiled as she began walking down the street, enjoying the first real walk in sunlight that she had had in decades. In the first years of her vampire days, Wesley had made spells for her that had allowed her to walk around during daytime for a few hours. But that had all stopped after the ex-watcher's retirement.

Finding the Summers home quite easily - it was the only one that still had inhabitants - she heard commotion in the backyard. Jumping over the fence easily, it was nothing for a vampire, she saw the potential slayers gathered around two girls that were fighting. One of them was Kennedy - there were pictures of her in the Unnatural Museum of History - the other she recognized from the file she had stolen from the SA. She was Mina Parker. The girl she had come for. Some of the potentials looked at her curiously as she stalked towards the two fighters. Mina had the upper hand and enjoying beating the hell out of the potential.

"Why don't you pick on someone your own size?" she asked Mina giving her a smug look that expressed all of her hate.

"Well, well, look who died and came to the hellmouth," Mina recognized her from the SA files. She was after all, the only living vampire slayer. She had held back more than once the urge to challenge her in some way to a fight, simply to see if she could win. And there she was now, simply asking for it. She smiled.

"Died a long time ago, girl, which they won't be able to say about you when I'm done with your white trash ass," Lonny retorted.

"Standing right here, bitch," Mina said smiling devilishly. It was a smile many of her enemies and colleague slayers feared. It was the spark of madness inside Mina that made her the great fighter she was.

Lonny charged her and the fight started. They went on for a while without either one of them getting the upper hand, but in the end, even though Mina was skilled and powerful, Lonny had twice her strength and experience as a slayer and a vampire. Holding Mina in a head lock, she muttered, only for her opponent to hear :

"You killed my father, you piece of shit."

"I didn't kill anyone's father," Mina said kicking Lonny in the stomach and freeing herself from her grip. The truth was this Mina had no idea of what Lonny was talking about. The Mina that had seen the changed future would only flash inside this body later on.

"Sell it to some other time anomaly," Lonny clenched her teeth and attacked her again.

"Enough already!" someone pulled Lonny off Mina.

"What the fuck do you think you're...," Lonny lashed out at the person that had separated her from Mina, but when she turned to see who it was, the words stopped in her throat. Before her stood Buffy Summers, the Slayer, the One.

"Who are you? And what exactly do you think you're doing?" the small blond slayer asked her crossing her arms over her chest.

"You're much shorter in real life," the vampire said smiling. "I'm Lonny."

"Okay, Lonny. What are you doing here?" Buffy asked.

"Just here to help save the day," she said looking back at Mina. "She's evil, you know," she pointed towards Mina.

"She's a vampire!" Mina interfered.

"Are you?" Buffy looked at Lonny strangely.

"Yeah, but I still have a soul. I'm a vampire slayer. Vampire, underlined twice," she explained and turning back towards Mina, said: "She, on the other hand, doesn't have a soul."

"What is she talking about?" Buffy looked towards Mina.

"Nothing, we just had a few run ins and I beat her. She's just a sore loser," the slayer said getting up and dusting her clothes off.

"You wish," Lonny scowled.

"If you're here to help, you're welcomed to stay, but if you're here just to make trouble, I suggest you leave," Buffy said firmly.

"Oh, I'm just here to help," Lonny assured her eyeing Mina as she spoke those words. Mina didn't even flinch under her gaze, but told herself that she needed to be more careful now that there was someone from her time there to stop her. She suspected someone was likely to come after her, but she had to admit, she hadn't expected it to be Lonny.

_Los Angeles_

_Year: 2053_

_Location: A graveyard_

She landed in a crypt and hit her head on a marble tomb. Wincing from the pain, she got up and rubbed her forehead. What had happened? One moment she was at Wolfram & Hart, talking to Lonny, the next she landed in some crypt. She couldn't understand how the transition had taken place.

She forced herself to open the crypt's heavy door. Outside, her suspicions had been confirmed: she was in a graveyard. The sky was clouded and it seemed that it would rain soon. The horrible landing as well as the flash of light she had experienced told her she must have taken another jump through time. But to when?

She frowned, this had to happen when she was so close to getting home! Walking among the graves she wondered where the crossroads had taken her this time. It was well after 2000 as she noticed thanks to the many graves. Somewhere in the horizon, she saw a funeral taking place. There were about a dozen people gathered around the grave. After a few moments, they began moving away. It was over. When the people were out of sight, Fred 2 neared the grave to see who had died. When she came across the name, she found the answer to the last question she had asked Lonny before disappearing. She read on the grave:

"Kaleena Anne Summers-Perkins

2034 - 2053

Beloved daughter

Devoted friend

Fearless fighter

She lies with angels now"

She looked up at the figures losing themselves in the horizon. One of them she recognized instantly: it was Angel, holding an older blond woman by the arm, looking pitiful and miserable. Another figure, a young redhead turned her head towards her as if feeling Fred 2 was staring at her.

"Pity when someone dies so young, don't you think?" a voice startled her. Seeing who it was made Fred 2 realized she wasn't the one the redhead - Willow - had been staring at. She had looked back at the new arrival, Spike.

"Great pity," she murmured as she stared back at the grave.

_Location: The Hollow Crossroads_

_Time: Absolutely nowhen_

"There is another problem now," the Hur'dha suddenly broke the silence that had laid itself between himself and the witch.

"Another one?" Willow smiled. "What is it?"

"The boy," the Hur'dha said.

"Rupert? He's the least of our problems," the witch said knowingly.

"Not if he gets in the way of your plans," he warned her.

"Oh, what can he do?" the witch still didn't believe him.

_Los Angeles_

_Year: 2083_

_Location: The LA Slayer Association HQ_

_Sub-location: The SA Underground Vaults_

"Are you sure about this?" Rupert asked the man leading him through the maze of vaults in the underground of the SA building. This was the place where important books and magical items were stored. Unlike Angel's supersafe, these vaults were guarded only by standard technology, a few spells and slayers.

"Absolutely, sir," the man answered. "I don't know how we came into its possession, but it's here," he added as he stopped in front of a vault. He deactivated the security system with a small remote and punching in a code, he opened it. The room was packed with magical items carefully labeled and arranged on shelves. The man headed towards one shelf in particular and urged Rupert to follow him. Looking at the items on the indicated shelf, Rupert's eyes suddenly lit up.

"And suddenly my luck seems to have changed," he said picking up the ring of Batt-Hura off the shelf. This was the same ring Lonny had used to go to Sunnydale in the year 2003.

_End Part 10_


	12. Fire reborn

**Part 11  
Fire reborn**

_Los Angeles  
Year: 2053  
Location: A graveyard_

"You're that girl, aren't you?" Spike tried hard to remember. "Anne was it? Fred's granddaughter."

"That's right," Fred 2 smiled politely feeling like she was intruding on a private moment. If she hadn't been there Spike would have been alone like, she suspected, he had intended in the first place. She also felt relieved that this was Spike standing before her and not Angel who in 2052 had the chance to meet the real Anne at her great-grandmother's funeral. She supposed that Spike hadn't attended it due to his fight with Angel, but perhaps he had had a private moment at her grave as he did now at Kalee's.

"I'm sorry about your grandmother," Spike said and Fred 2 thought he looked like lightning had just struck him. The fact that he had been crying recently was obvious.

"It was her time," she repeated the words her mother had once told her about her great-grandmother's death. "I'm sorry about Kalee," she felt the need to say.

"You knew her?" he asked and as he looked at her, Fred 2 spotted a strange light in his eyes that was, she could only guess, the seed of desolation.

"I met her, but I didn't have a chance to really talk to her," she said with a sad smile.

"Yeah, she left real quick after I did," he said misunderstanding her words. Then again there was no chance he could have ever guessed what she had truly meant. "She was a good girl. She just...I shouldn't have...," the words seemed to choke him. "She shouldn't have been alone. I don't even know who to blame. Me or him," he was referring to Angel.

"You shouldn't blame anyone. It just happened," she tried to comfort him.

"Oh, yeah, a demon attacking her in the middle of the bloody arctic just happened," he said in an angry voice, but then immediately added: "I'm sorry."

"It's all right," she looked down at the grave. "At least she died doing the right thing. You know, fighting the fight."

"She died saving the world," he smirked, those words brought up bitter memories inside him. His smile faded: "But I'll never forgive him for this. He drove her away."

"I thought she left," she reminded him of what he had previously said.

"He realized he went a step too far and tried to pull back. Like he didn't know it wasn't something he could take back. He made her angry, made her sad. Broke her heart and then she left. Just like that," he said sighing.

"Why didn't she come to you?" she asked looking back up at him.

"Because without him, she didn't have a reason to live. That's how much she loved him. I tried to find her," he sighed. "I tried real hard. I chased after her all over the world, but she was always a step ahead of me. And when I finally found her, she was lying dead on a bed of ice. Killing the monster didn't help, I thought it would, but it didn't stop the pain, not one bit," he paused before saying: "I brought her home. Right on his doorstep."

"But he didn't see you," she realized and Spike nodded.

"You see, even with a soul he can't help but destroy lives. We can't help but destroy lives. We're monsters and nothing's ever going to change us. Not time, not a bleedin' soul," he looked away from the grave as if the very sight of it made his eyes hurt.

"Don't say that," she couldn't believe what he was saying. He and Angel had saved so many people together and alone, not to mention the world on several occasions. "You're just really hurt ri..."

"Hurt? I'm not the one laying six feet under," he stared at the ground for a moment. "But I suppose it always hurts when one loses a child," he smiled weakly. "She was my daughter. Mine and hers. In my eyes she always was," he muttered. "Well," he shook himself out of the state of utter melancholy. "It's about time I get going. It was nice seeing you again."

"Same here," Fred 2 said as the vampire walked away, touching Kalee's grave one last time as he did. Alone, she stared down at the grave again. "This shouldn't have happened," she whispered and a sad smile crossed her face. She looked up and around herself and wondered out loud: "What am I suppose to do now?"

_Location: Sunnydale  
Year: 2003_

"And that," Buffy said and gestured towards Mina, who was just entering the living room. "Is our latest addition, Mina. She's a good fighter. Mina, this is Angel," she introduced her to the vampire.

"Is it just me or have we met before?" Angel asked smiling.

"I don't think so," Mina's said obviously disturbed by the vampire's presence. An amused Lonny followed the scene from beyond the doorframe of the living room. She had stayed out of Angel's way so far and the vampire was still clueless to her presence in the house. Though, she had noted with a smile, he had sometimes felt her familiar scent and had been very confused by it. Now, she told herself, it was time to let the cat out of the bag.

"Okay, I think that's everybody," Buffy said looking around the living room as if counting the potential slayers gathered there.

"Not quite," Lonny said as she entered the room.

"Oh, right, sorry, Angel this is...," the slayer began, but Angel interrupted her already knowing the name:

"Lonny," he was stunned. What the hell was she doing there? And how exactly had she gotten there?

"Hey to you too, Angelito," she couldn't help but smile. That mischievous smile children have when they know they did something wrong.

"You two know each other?" Buffy asked surprised.

"Oh, yeah, me and him go way back," Lonny said just waiting for Angel to explode in an angry fit or a wave of protests.

"You didn't sire her, did you?" the slayer turned towards Angel.

"No, I didn't. I'm pretty sure I would've let her bleed to death before I'd ever consider turning her," the vampire said as he got up and grabbing Lonny by the arm dragged her into the kitchen as she yelled to the others - who didn't know what to think anymore:

"I'll be right back!"

"What the hell are you doing here!" he yelled at her when they were alone.

"Me? Just here to save the world," she said in a loud voice and added whispering: "from one slayer ubberbitch," and then yelled for the others to hear in the living room: "From the armies of darkness!"

"I'm here, Spike's here. We can deal with this by ourselves," he reminded her.

"Actually, no you can't," Lonny smiled. "Cause if you could I wouldn't be here in the first place. Whatever you two have been doing, you've been doing it all wrong, cause when the world's gonna change and shit - and it will if you keep on dealing with this by yourselves," she used his exact words," - I'm gonna wind up being a freakin' time anomaly and daddy'll be dead before his time or mine for that matter."

"What are you talking about?" Angel was confused.

"Okay, let me rephrase that for you: all this," she gestured around herself, "already happened once. The bitch won. She stopped the slayer line from spreading. And somehow because of that, I was never born."

"But if reality was altered why am I still here? I should be back in the future, not remembering a thing. If she changed the past the way she wanted to, then I never met her and she never stole that ring from me," Angel said puzzled.

"Now you're making my head hurt," Lonny said. "I don't care why the hell we're here and I sure don't give a fuck about all the mumbo-jumbo you just blabbered on about, but if there's still a chance to stop that little brat from going through with her plan I'm here to take it," she smiled. "Now, are you at least sleeping with her or are you just drooling over her like a dog in heat?"

"I was not drooling over her," Angel said slightly offended.

"Right," she teased him. "But I suggest next time you at least grab a mop. Just in case a puddle starts forming."

"Hey," Angel protested.

"I knew you wouldn't have the guts to sleep with her. Man, if you'll screw up the mission again at least do if for something that's worth while," she suggested and Angel scoffed:

"And cut Angelus louse in a house of teenage potential slayers? There's a brilliant plan."

"Yeah, doesn't it just give you the chills?" Lonny smirked: "But hey, if you'd turn, you know I'd dust you. Just cause I love you so much."

"I'm positive you would," he gave her an annoyed look.

"Maybe Spike'll beat you to the punch. No curse holding his pelvis still," she said chuckling. "Where is he by the way?"

"He's in a house across the street," he said. "I thought it would be better if he stayed out of it."

"And you actually believe he will?" she shook her head: "Since when did you become naive?"

"Is everything all right?" Buffy entered the kitchen in an attempt to find out what was going on between the two.

"Peachy," Lonny smiled. "We were just...going down memory lane."

"She's not evil, is she?" Buffy asked Angel.

"Evil, no. Highly annoying, yes," the vampire eyed Lonny as he spoke the words.

"It's a vampire thing," Lonny said.

"Yeah, she's like a younger blacker feminine less-blond version of Spike," Angel said, sharing a private smile with Buffy.

_Los Angeles  
Year: 2083  
Location: The LA Slayer Association HQ_

"But, sir, you can't just take it!" the man followed Rupert as he moved down the hallways of the LA Slayer Association HQ. "There are certain forms that need to be filled and one of the elders has to approve your request personally," Rupert still didn't stop. "I'll have to report you!" the man yelled after him stopping in the middle of the corridor. The young watcher proceeded on his way without looking back. He had been too busy with his own thoughts to actually listen to what the man was saying. He was imagining how he would use the ring of Batt-Hura to stop Willow from erasing the minds of his fellow watchers and perhaps apprehending Mina Parker, if it was indeed true that she had become a hazard to the slayer community.

He stopped in his tracks, the words the man had spoken suddenly ringing in his ears. He didn't care that what he was doing was illegal, but realized that in case he failed on this personal mission his position in the SA would be endangered. He frowned holding the ring of Batt-Hura even tighter in his hand. The solution was simple: failure was not an option. He'd go through with his plan, even if it meant taking out anyone that stood in his way. Including Willow.

_Location: The Hollow Crossroads  
Time: Absolutely nowhen_

"How the hell did he get the ring!" Willow asked. "I thought there was only one. Which is currently in Sunnydale way back in 2003."

"There are two. Both of which are currently in Sunnydale. The ring got into the SA vaults by accident. An accident that hasn't happened yet, but that already took place," the Hur'dha explained only confusing Willow.

"Something that happened, but hasn't happened yet," she rephrased his words, without quite understanding their meaning.

"Precisely," he smiled happy she had understood.

"I don't even want to ask," Willow sighed. "But if everything that hasn't taken place in the past yet has already happened how come the outcome hasn't affected reality yet?"

"That's a paradox. You see, if everything would be predefined from the moment a future person enters the past, then the change would be instantaneous and that just can't be done," the Hur'dha said.

"This is a conversation I don't want to get into," Willow said rubbing her temples.

"Let's just say I know most of the things that have already happened, but time still leaves an element of surprise. Like the ring. It got there, I know how, but I still can't tell you what your heroes and that mischievous vampire will wind up doing in the past this time around," he explained.

"Stop it, you're giving me a headache," Willow said frowning.

"You asked," a thin smiled crossed the Hur'dha's lips.

"What's Rupert planning on doing with the ring?" Willow asked.

"Apparently, kill you," he looked down at her with an amused look.

"Surprise, surprise," Willow's eyes flashed black for an instant.

"He doesn't quite know everything about you, does he?" the Hur'dha shook his head. "He's in for a surprise."

"I don't exactly go around telling people what happened to me when I came here," Willow shrugged.

"But I'm afraid that won't be the end of it," the Hur'dha continued. "He's like a fish who suddenly found the triton."

"Oh, he's getting a little high on power, huh?" Willow smirked. "Figures."

"If he gets to kill your past shadow, he could become a hazard," the Hur'dha pointed out. "I already have one time vigilante to worry about. I don't need another one."

"You think he won't realize he didn't kill me? If he figures out why, he might go after a much earlier version of me. Then I'd truly be in danger," Willow said pondering the possibilities.

"We could finally have that long discussion we kept talking about," the Hur'dha said smiling.

"No offense, but my time isn't over just yet," Willow replied looking at the blue creature.

"Well, I can dream, can't I?" he said jokingly. "Are you going to take care of him or do I have to?"

"I'll do it," the witch said resigned. "The boy just doesn't know when he's in over his head."

_Los Angeles  
Location: The Underground of Wolfram & Hart Demon Hunting Inc  
Year: Static Time - no precise date_

For them, time had never changed, they didn't remember the flash of light or being back in whatever changed part of the future they belonged. They were still there, only a few feet away from her, Mary 7, the psycho slayer that haunted - for the time being - the underground corridors of Wolfram & Hart's unmentionables department.

"One's for good luck, twice for old times sake. Three's more than a coincidence, four's like something old and five is always rotten. Six is for bad luck," Mary 7 said taking another step towards them with each number. When she reached seven, she stopped, only a foot away from Wes 2. He could smell the dried up blood on her hands, the stench of death and see the insanity in her eyes. "And 7, lucky 7..."

"Attack her," Wes 2 whispered towards Harmony who was standing behind him.

"Are you crazy? She's like a freakin' slayer! Do you want me dead or something?" Harmony protested out loud attracting Mary 7's attention. The vampire covered her mouth instantly when she saw the slayer staring at her.

"Seven's for...," the slayer spoke again.

"RUN!" Wes 2 suddenly yelled, realizing that the moment her little poetry would be over Mary 7 would attack them. Harmony didn't need anything more, she made a run for it, leaving Wes 2 far behind.

"Seven's for something red!" Mary 7 yelled and ran after them. She quickly caught up with Wes 2 and yanking him by the collar of his uniform slammed him on the floor. Putting her naked foot on his chest she said, smiling wildly: "Sit, puppy, I'll be right back." Wes 2 was about to sigh relieved - he thought she would leave him there and he'd have a chance to escape - when with a hard kick, the slayer broke his leg. Wes 2 let out a scream of pain as Mary 7 continued down the corridor in pursuit of Harmony. With trembling hands Wes 2 reached out for his leg. Pulling up the pants' leg he saw that the bone had broken through the skin and he was bleeding hard.

"Oh god," he let out leaning on the wall and wincing in pain. What was he suppose to do now? He looked down the corridor where the bodies of the five men were laying. He suddenly remembered finding a walkie-talkie on one of them. Realizing it was his only chance to save himself and perhaps Harmony he tried to stand up on his one good leg. He fell back down on the floor as soon as he tried taking a step forward. Deciding there was no other way, he began crawling towards the corpses, trying not to hit his broken leg in the process. He only hoped Harmony could keep Mary 7 busy long enough for him to reach the bodies.

_Location: Sunnydale  
Year: 2003_

Spike was intentionally missing at the dinner table. Buffy supposed it was because Angel was there, but Lonny knew the truth. Yes, he was staying out of Angel's way, but not for the reasons the slayer had thought of. Spike was afraid that by being around Angel too much he'd wind up blowing his cover. The cover Lonny had already seen through. Spike hadn't been able to hide his surprise at the sight of her. Though he tried to brush it off, Lonny hadn't believed his story of how she reminded him of someone - not any more than Buffy was buying Angel's story about Mina. Lonny hadn't revealed to Spike the fact that she had recognized him though.

At the dinner table, she observed the whole scene with amusement. Angel's stares, Mina's acting talent, the nervousness of the potentials, the strangeness of this weaker version of Willow, the goofy Xander and his ex-demon ex-girlfriend and above all, the way Buffy regarded Angel and the way, when he took the time to answer her questions, the vampire looked back at her. No wonder the mission had been a total fiasco. Angel, though preoccupied by Mina, was making googly eyes at the slayer and Spike was playing his own game, apparently without Angel's knowledge.

It was time she did something about the whole situation. She waited until dinner was over and the potentials along with the Scooby gang retired from the kitchen. Buffy was talking to Angel as they headed out of the kitchen:

"It turns out she turned the guy into this huge worm and he was..."

"I need to talk to you for a moment," Lonny interrupted the slayer grabbing Angel by the arm.

"I'll be just a minute," Angel told Buffy urging her to continue on her way into the living room. After hesitating for a moment, the slayer left the two vampires alone. Lonny stared at Angel before, out of the blue, slapping him across the face. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" he asked touching his bleeding lip.

"Wake the fuck up, Romeo," Lonny said coldly.

"You're lucky I'm not hitting you back," Angel said pointing a menacing finger at her.

"If it'll sober you up, go ahead, I can take a punch," she said smiling.

"What are you talking about?" he asked frowning.

"I'm talking about you not focusing on the freaking mission," Angel wanted to protest, but she didn't let him: "You didn't even notice Spike for god's sake!"

"I saw Spike," he thought she was referring to the one from the past.

"But did you actually take notice of the fact that the old Spike is gone and the beloved Spike we both know and love is hear instead of him?" she asked crossing her arms over her chest.

"WHAT!" Angel asked, totally taken by surprise.

_End Part 11_


	13. Reign of fire

**Part 12  
Reign of fire**

_Los Angeles  
Year: 2053_

_Location: Just outside a graveyard_

Fred 2 walked down the sidewalk deep in thought. What was she suppose to do now? Lonny wasn't there and the mere thought that at the moment she had disappeared the vampire had found a solution to their temporal displacement only made her angry. Trying to figure out what had happened to her made her head hurt. As she continued to walk she didn't notice the black limousine following her at a very slow pace. She only realized it was there when the driver honked twice, startling her. She looked back at the dark windows. She couldn't see anything through them. The side door of the backseat opened, inviting her in. She neared the car hesitantly and peaked through the open door to see who it was. She sighed relieved when she saw Willow.

"Get in," the redhead told her and the teenager obeyed her without a second thought. "You're not Anne."

"Tell me something I don't know," Fred 2 said staring at her.

"Oh god," the witch seemed to suddenly realize something. "He sent you here, didn't he? Cause I doubt you could take down the big fella by yourself."

"You mean...the blue guy?" Fred 2 guessed.

"The Hur'dha," she nodded. "Where are you from?" she asked and suddenly got a very strange vibe. "Los Angeles. Wolfram & Hart. I remember you."

"I...never met you. Actually I don't think I'm even born yet," Fred 2 said letting out a nervous laughter.

"I...it's rather complicated, Fred," Willow said taking the teenager by surprise.

"What...I...how can you...," Fred 2 stuttered.

"Let's just say it's a long story, but if you hang around for another 10 minutes I'll probably know why you're here," the witch told her.

"Can you see into the future?" it was the only plausible excuse she could find. Willow laughed.

"No, nothing like that. I took a little trip a while ago and it kind of changed a few things for me," she kept being vague.

"So you think you can help me?" Fred 2 asked hopeful.

"I'll do my best," Willow promised her.

_Los Angeles_

_Year: 2083_

_Location: Wolfram & Hart Demon Hunting Inc.  
A few days ago_

Rupert just couldn't believe it. Willow's lifeless body was slumped over Angel's desk. It had been easy - too easy and to top it all, nothing was happening. Time wasn't altering itself. It was like she wasn't dead. He checked her pulse again. She was definitely dead. A thought suddenly crossed his mind: what if she had been dead before he had killed her? What if she had been some sort of bizarre immortal like vampires were? What if she'd suddenly wake up? He pulled away from the body feeling uneasy. If she did wake up she was bound to be pretty pissed off about what he had done.

"Willow?" he asked the body, but it didn't answer him. "Willow..." he tried again with no result. It suddenly seemed very quiet to him. He looked around. Time - he felt this - had somehow stopped. There was no sound coming from the busy hallways of Wolfram & Hart, just a deaf silence. He startled at the sound of hands clapping. He turned around to find Willow smiling at him. "What the hell!" he looked back at the dead redhead still laying on the desk.

"I'm not sure that's the right question," the witch said as she walked over to the dead Willow.

"Nice job. Not too sloppy either," she stared at the sword sticking out of the body amused.

"One blow. The blood is probably gonna ruin Angel's paperwork, but hey, sacrifices have to be made."

"Why aren't you dead?" Rupert asked angrily.

"Don't pout, Rupert, it doesn't work for guys," she didn't answer him.

"Tell me!" he yelled at her, grabbing her arm violently.

"No need to get rough," her eyes shined black and Rupert flew across the office hitting the wall. "Haven't you asked yourself why it's been so easy? Killing me?"

"Now that you mention it," he said getting up from the floor.

"Well, technically that's not me. She's me, but not me me," she said confusing the boy even further.

"Oh, thank you for illuminating me," he rolled his eyes. "You're not gonna tell me what's really going on, are you?"

"Do I look stupid?" the witch smiled.

"Oh, then I'll just have to kill you a lot more times," Rupert said coldly.

"I'd have to say good luck with that, but I'm not sure I can let you continue at this pace," Willow warned him.

"Are you gonna try and stop me?" he smirked.

"Don't tempt me, Rupert," Willow smiled. "The only reason you're still alive is because I loved and respected your great-grandfather a great deal and I'd hate to see his bloodline stop because of a spoiled little ingrate like you."

"Lucky me then. You on the other hand, not so fortunate," Rupert said cockily.

"You just don't get it," she shook her head. "Fine, have it your way," she turned on her heels.

"Where are you going?" he asked, but by the time he did, time had already taken its natural course again and Willow was gone. He turned back towards the body, but found that it had mysteriously disappeared as well. Even the blood was gone. "I guess it's time to get to work," he said sighing and rose the ring of Batt-Hura into the air. The Hur'dha had made this second ring in such a way that the young watcher did not have to enter the realm of the Hollow Crossroads to venture into the past. He could enter directly in it. The Guardian had taken this precaution out of fear of what Rupert might do once he knew of it. The SA had no idea of the existence of the Hollow Crossroads and the Hur'dha preferred it remained like that.

_Location: Sunnydale  
Year: 2003_

Angel went down into the basement right after speaking to the slayer on the porch. It was time to find out what Spike was up to. As he descended the last few stairs he was immediately struck by the smell of blood, dried by now, and rattled earth. He looked around trying to locate the origin of the smell. His eyes stopped on the carpet. He walked over to it and lifted it. Something had been recently buried underneath it. He turned his head and frowned scanning the room. He spotted the disregarded shovel somewhere in a corner. Picking it up he began digging and quickly came across the bloody sheets. Pulling them off he was surprised to find Spike under them, still unconscious. For a moment he didn't know what to make of it, but then realized what had happened: Spike had taken out his counterpart in order to be able to get close to the slayer again.

He suddenly heard someone whistling happily as he came down the stairs. It was Spike. Without a second thought, Angel morphed into game face and grabbing the other vampire by the front of his shirt he threw him on the ground hard and growled at him.

"What the hell are you doing here!"

"Sod off!" he told Angel yanking his shirt out of his grip. "Has anyone told you you have some serious anger management issues?"

"What are you doing here, Spike?" the vampire asked angrily again.

"Here to save the day, mate, just like you," he was still playing the role of his past self. His eyes wondered towards the other side of the room and saw the uncovered body in the bloody sheets and realized it was time to drop the act: "Okay, so it is me. You weren't seriously expecting me to stay out of it, were you?" he tried to get up, but Angel threw him back down.

"Do you even realize that you're putting the whole past in danger? Threatening the destruction of the hellmouth?"

"What the bloody hell are you talking about?" Spike asked confused. Angel rose him off the floor in one quick motion and threw him down next to the body of his past self.

"That's what I'm talking about," Angel pointed at the bloody form of the unconscious vampire.

"I didn't do that," Spike said finally understanding what he was so angry about. He stood up and dusted himself off: "That was our darling little slayer. Mina, I believe that's her name."

"Mina," Angel frowned. "But why?"

"Very good question," Spike smiled. "Unfortunately I'm not the one you should be asking. Okay, so I thought about doing pretty much the same thing, but hopefully in a less bloody manner. I mean look at the poor bloke, she did him in good."

"At least now we have a reason to get Mina thrown out of the house," Angel said lost in thoughts for a moment.

"I suppose it's about time. I wish we could stay a little more though. See the fireworks. See the girl," he smiled.

"Yeah, but apparently we already screwed up once. For her sake at least, if the world's not good enough, we need to put an end to Mina's threat," Angel said, not realizing that the very person he had been referring to had been listening in on their conversation through the cracked door of the basement. Mina grasped the ring of Batt-Hura in her hand tighter.

"It's now or never," she whispered to herself as she slowly closed the door and got up.

_Los Angeles  
Location: The Underground of Wolfram & Hart Demon Hunting Inc  
Year: Static Time - no precise date_

"Help," he said into the walkie-talkie weakly. Then gathering his powers he said louder than before: "Help!" He breathed heavily. He had lost a lot of blood. He looked down the corridor at the bloody trail he had left behind. "Angel? Are you there?" he asked into the device, but got no answer. It was exaggeratedly quiet. He couldn't hear footsteps anymore or Mary 7's diabolical laughter far away. But at least, he thought to himself, there weren't any screams. Harmony wasn't calling out in agony. She couldn't be dead, because if she was, Mary 7 would have already returned for him. He closed his eyes tiredly. He was slipping away. A voice coming from the walkie-talkie startled him awake:

"This is base, Alpha 1, can you hear me?"

"I...," he didn't know what to say. "Alpha 1 has been taken out. If Alpha 1 is five people."

"Who is this?" the voice at the other end of the line asked.

"I'm...it's a long story and since I think I'm bleeding to death you'll excuse me if I don't start telling you the story of my life. I got here by accident," he explained forcing himself to continue to speak.

"Where are you? Can you give us an exact location?" the man asked.

"I...I sort of got lost," Wes 2 confessed.

"Are you anywhere near a door?" he asked.

"As a matter of fact," the teenager stared at the open door next to the dead bodies of the special ops team. "I think it was her cell. It's open."

"Corridor J440/193 then," he recognized it immediately. "Just hold on, I'll send another team down there right away."

"Get Angel!" he told the man remembering what Harmony had told him.

"I'll see if he's available," he promised him and closed the walkie-talkie. Now that the man had stopped talking Wes 2 suddenly realized someone was running towards him. He tried to pull himself up horrified, but fell back down almost instantly. He sighed relieved when he saw it was only Harmony. She had a few bruises and her clothes were dustier, but she was fine. "Did you kill her?"

"That crazy bitch? I'm no superhero, kid," Harmony said and when she saw the state he was in, she asked: "Eew, what did she do to you?"

"She broke my leg in the most horrendous way possible," he told her.

"You're making me hungry," she grimaced.

"Well, you're welcome to lick the floor," he gestured towards the bloody trail he had left on the hallway's floor.

"Suddenly feeling less hungry," Harmony said and suddenly froze. "Did you hear that?"

"Again, no superhearing, Harmony," he reminded her.

"She's coming," she said a bit alarmed.

"A rescue team's being sent down to help. Angel might come too," he told her holding up the walkie- talkie.

"Good, you're going to need someone to carry out your corpse and sweep up my dust," Harmony said panicking. Wes 2 could hear the footsteps now too.

"What do we do? What do we do?" Harmony was tempted to run again, but knew that if she did Wes 2 would surely be doomed. The teenager suddenly got an idea.

"Help me up," he told the vampire and she pulled him, sustaining him by the shoulders. "We have to get inside the cell."

"So we can be more trapped than now?" she was skeptical.

"Trust me. I think I know what I'm doing," he was a bit unsure of his plan as well.

"Okay, but only because you sound like Wes when you say that," she said as she guided him towards the open cell that had once belonged to Mary 7. The hallways echoed with the slayer's maniacal laughter as she neared her target, all the way singing:

"7-7, lucky 7...coming to get you, my lucky lucky seven..."

_Location: Sunnydale  
Year: 2003_

"Can't sleep?" Mina asked Buffy, who was still out on the front porch, as she neared her.

"On a night like this? Who could?" the slayer was surprised to see her there. Some of the other potentials were awake as well, but none of them had bothered her. Not even Xander, Giles, Willow, Faith or Dawn had disturbed her, understanding she needed a little time alone. Only Spike and Angel had come to see her, but they were a whole different story.

"Yeah, that's some fight we'll be in tomorrow," Mina said staring into the horizon.

"Biggest one yet for me. And I've seen enough, believe me," the slayer said thinking that perhaps, as she was the most recently arrived potential, Mina was frightened. After all she had had only a day to digest everything the other girls had had weeks to get used to. "I can't guarantee you'll make it alive out of this if that's why you're here. I don't even know if I'll survive. But you're in good shape. You have the right moves. You might just be one of the lucky ones."

"You think so?" Mina smiled and then asked: "Tell me something... doesn't the thought of spreading your powers to all these girls bother you in any way?"

"Why should it?" she was surprised by her question. "Actually, I think it's the best idea I've ever had. I'm happy thinking that starting tomorrow no slayer will ever have to go through what I went by herself. Don't get me wrong, there were some great things along the way, great friends, but I wouldn't wish it to anyone. Slayers will never be alone again. Starting tomorrow," she said smiling, staring into the horizon, lost. "The easiest way to stop thinking about a battle is to think about what you'll be doing after it. I thought I could go..." her words were cut short by a whimper of pain. She looked down at her body and saw the shining tip of a knife sticking out of the left side of her chest, right from the place where her heart was. She fell on her knees, convulsing in pain. She looked back at Mina horrified.

"I'm sorry, Buffy, this is just how it was meant to be," she told her not really feeling any sympathy for the woman dying before her eyes. She had struck only once, with all her slayer strength, while Buffy had been distracted the most.

"W-why?..." Buffy only managed to whimper one last time before collapsing on the porch in a pool of her own blood. Mina watched her disturbed for a moment until the high pitched screams of Dawn shook her out of it:

"Buffy! Bufy!" Dawn ran to her sister's side, tears falling her eyes. The Scoobies quickly appeared along with the many potentials and in the end, Spike and Angel.

"Oh, no," Spike fell to his knees and tears formed in Angel's eyes. They had failed again.

"YOU!" Lonny marched towards Mina, but at the very moment she touched her arm, Mina turned into a statue of ash and withered away and along with her, the ring of Batt-Hura.

"What the...," Spike began saying horrified, but he didn't manage to finish his sentence as he turned to ashes as well. Angel shortly followed. The crowd of potentials as well as the Scoobies looked on horrified as Lonny vanished in a flash of white light.

_Los Angeles  
Year: 2053  
Location: Willow Rosenburg's penthouse apartment_

"Are you sure you don't want a drink?" Willow asked the teenager gesturing towards the bottle of whiskey she had opened.

"Oh, no. I'm not allowed," Fred 2 said feeling rather uncomfortable in Willow's gigantic Los Angeles apartment.

"Because you're underage?" she asked amused. "I won't tell anyone."

"It's not that, but this one time at my cousin Diana's wedding I had a little too much to drink and let's just say karaoke will never be the same again," Fred 2 confessed embarrassed. "My brother will never stop teasing me about it."

"Buffy made a funny drunk," the witch remembered smiling.

"I wish I had met her," Fred 2 said returning the smile. "I heard she was quite the amazing person."

"She was. But you've never met her?" she seemed surprised by this.

"Well isn't she...," she didn't want to pronounce the word dead.

"Angel probably didn't have a chance to tell you yet," Willow realized taking a sip from her glass.

"Tell me what?" Fred 2 asked curious.

"That she's still alive," she said looking into her glass.

"Really!" she was shocked. "That makes her really...old."

"Yes, it does," she laughed amused by her reaction. "Now, let's see how I can help you out of this mess you've gotten yourself into."

"I don't exactly know how I got here, but the last place I was in I got there through the crossroads. I wasn't alone, there was a vampire with me. Lonny, if you met her. She's Charles Gunn's daughter. She's also a slayer. Vampire slayer, pretty weird, huh?" she looked over at the witch and saw a look of horror in her eyes. "Is something wrong?" she asked concerned.

"Take my hand," Willow told her hurriedly.

"What's wrong?" Fred 2 asked, but got her answer when she saw her left hand turning into ashes. She let out a scream, but Willow grabbed her by her other hand and a bright yellow glow surrounded the teenager. After a few moments, Fred 2 fell to the floor, weakened. "What's happening?" she asked the witch, but not even she had an answer.

"I don't know, but you have to get out of here. Now," Willow told her. "Something bad is happening to everything."

"But where am I suppose to go?" Fred 2 asked staring at her absent left hand. When she rose her eyes, Willow was a statue of ash. "Oh, god!" she let out.

_Los Angeles  
Location: The Underground of Wolfram & Hart Demon Hunting Inc  
Year: Static Time - no precise date_

"So this was your big plan? Groveling in a corner?" Harmony asked looking around the empty cell. "This place is creepy."

"That's precisely what I'm counting on," Wes 2 said closing his eyes tiredly.

"What, that she'll be too crept out to come in here?" she asked confused. "Oh, I guess that could work."

"Actually I was thinking about something else," Wes 2 said as Mary 7's voice was heard outside saying:

"There's my 7, 7 went down the rabbit hole, down into the evil place...but it's still my lucky-lucky 7."

The next moment, the slayer appeared in the doorframe of the cell, smiling wildly at them.

"There's my seven," she repeated staring at Harmony.

"Okay, she's coming towards me! This would be a good time for your plan to start working. Like, now!" Harmony yelled as Mary 7 stalked towards her. The slayer suddenly stopped and simply leaped towards the vampire. Harmony let out a scream, closed her eyes and put her hands in front of her face. Nothing happened. She opened her eyes hesitantly and saw that Mary 7 was still standing in front of her where she had last stopped before her leap. "What's..." the slayer leaped towards her again and Harmony screamed once more, but then saw Mary 7 was standing still a feet away from her again. She kept repeating the motion over and over again. "What's happening?"

"Static time. This cell was made especially for her," Wes 2 smiled.

"But how did she get out then?" Harmony asked confused.

"The accountant must've taken care of that too. Magic, I suppose. She probably killed him after she got out," Wes 2 guessed. He suddenly felt very strange. "Did you feel that? Maybe the static time is affecting us too," he said, but when he looked at Harmony she was gone and a pile of ashes was laying where she had been before. "Harm?" he looked at Mary 7 still stuck in her routine. She hadn't moved. He suddenly realized he couldn't feel the pain in his leg anymore. Looking down at it, he saw it had turned to ash. After another moment, he was entirely turned to ash.

_Los Angeles_

_Year: 2083_

_Location: Wolfram & Hart Demon Hunting Inc.  
A few days ago_

"I don't believe this!" Rupert said as he stared at Willow's dead body exasperated. He had transported himself only five minutes into the future - the future of the past he had initially entered - about four times, and he had still found Willow there. She just could not die.

"Bored yet?" Willow asked appearing behind him out of nowhere.

"You're driving me crazy!" Rupert spat at her.

"You're driving yourself crazy. Don't blame me for your idiotic ideas," Willow said smiling.

"You! You're the one I'm suppose to kill!" he said pointing towards her.

"Dear boy, do you really think you could? You can kill all these little puppets," she made a gesture towards the dead body that rose off the floor and started dancing in the room as if a puppeteer was playing with it, "but do you stand a chance against me?"

"Well, I'm sure gonna try," Rupert said menacingly. Willow laughed. He had no idea that even if he did manage to kill her, she'd still be alive. A sudden jolt of pain crossed her body and she leaned over. The watcher smiled. This was the sort of opportunity he had been waiting for. Taking the sword he had used to kill the other Willows he neared her, but the witch looked up at him, with her eyes black and yelled:

"You fool!" a beam of energy shot from her hand throwing him into the nearest wall. Breathing hard, Willow crouched down on the floor. Looking back at the young watcher she saw that he had turned to ash.

_Location: The Hollow Crossroads  
Time: Absolutely nowhen_

"What's happening?" Willow asked appearing next to the Hur'dha who was contemplating the crossroads in front of him, looking as calm as he usually did. The witch looked around herself. The direction in which the Hur'dha was staring was unchanged, but behind him, a dark spot grew threatening in the horizon. "Hur'dha, look!" she drew his attention towards the black cloud, still far away, but nearing them with every second that went by. "I don't understand. What's happening?" The Hur'dha looked at the dark spot and frowned:

"Oh, my, I do believe the world is coming to an end. I guess your heroes failed. Again."

"I suppose this proves that if you want to do something right you've gotta do it yourself," Willow sighed.

_End Part 12_


	14. Ashes II: Of Tomorrow

**Part 13  
Ashes II: Of Tomorrow**

_Location: The Hollow Crossroads  
Time: Absolutely nowhen_

Lonny landed with a hard thump on the ground. As she got up and dusted herself off she told herself:

"I gotta work on my landings." She froze when she looked up. The crossroads were darker, as if under the threat of an unknown menace, some swallowed by an impenetrable blackness. "What the..." Her legs suddenly seemed to fall out from under her and she jumped back a few steps. In the place she had just been, there was now a dark hole. She wanted to see if there was anything in it, but was afraid of going too near. She spotted the Hur'dha and Willow in the horizon and running up to them, asked, petrified: "What the hell is goin' on?"

"I'm afraid the world is ending, Lonny," Willow said sighing.

"What!" she couldn't believe it. "But how?"

"Buffy died. Spike wasn't there for the battle. Faith led a desperate attack against the Turok-Han army and lost. They all died. All, but one. Me. The First was free to roam the earth. He awakened the Old Ones and in time they wiped out most of humanity. But then a crazy physician, in her efforts to resurrect humanity to its former glory, accidentally created a shock wave that undid the existence of our entire dimension,"Willow explained.

"Okay, so our dimension is kaput, but there are a hell lot more out there. Isn't this place linked to all of 'em?" Lonny asked confused.

"Not quite. There are probably different versions of me and the crossroads in every dimension," the Hur'dha answered.

"There's a scary thought," Lonny said looking at the dark horizon worriedly. "Okay, second question. Let's think of time as a movie. If it ends, the two hours that came before it still exist..."

"You want to know why the crossroads are destroying themselves," Willow understood where she was going.

"Bingo," Lonny nodded.

"You're right, time does not end with one dimension, but something worse happened because of all of your trips into the past. Because there is no more year 2083, all of the events that lead to your incursion into the time stream never happened. Time can correct some anomalies or even overlook them, but in this case the changes were all too complicated to be solved, so it did what everyone does when they come across an error, time erased it. It created black holes across time that are sucking every inch of matter into themselves, slowly consuming the essence of time itself," the Hur'dha said in his usual calm peaceful voice.

"And...we can't do anything about it?" Lonny asked frustrated.

"Yes, we can. I will, but I need you to stay put," Willow told her.

"What?" Lonny wanted to protest.

"You proved that you couldn't change the outcome of the situation, now it's my turn to try and I don't need you standing in my way," Willow warned her. "Look, this isn't a game. The entire world is at stake and you're a little overzealous when it comes to these things. Screwing up is not an option anymore," she stated firmly.

"Have it your way," Lonny shrugged. "But you better save the world."

"Don't worry, I will," Willow assured her with a smile.

"Are you gonna kill her?" Lonny asked curious.

"Nah, that's just for seriously extreme cases," Willow answered.

"Extreme cases? You've gotta be shitting me! What's more extreme than this?" Lonny rolled her eyes.

"Mina is just too cocky to understand some things, that's not a good enough reason to kill her," Willow told her.

"The hell it isn't! She just destroyed the world and killed your best friend. Doesn't that make you angry?" she couldn't believe her.

"I've given up on anger, it's such an annoying feeling," the witch smiled. "Besides Buffy's not dead, not for good. I can still save her. The world too."

"I can't believe you're still considering your plan," the Hur'dha said looking towards Willow.

"Why not?" she grinned. "After all this time and you still can't trust my judgement. I'm shocked."

"Human nature is your territory," he made a gesture with his hand.

"I'll be back," Willow told them as she prepared to leave. "If not, it's been nice knowing you," she smiled again and disappeared in a flash of light.

"Why am I here?" Lonny asked the Hur'dha turning towards him. He looked at her questioningly. "Angel, Spike, that bitch, they all turned to ashes, but I got sent here."

"You were categorized as a time anomaly before, now you were treated the same," the Hur'dha explained.

"There's that word again," she shook her head and let out an unnecessary sigh. "So what do we do now? Just wait?"

"I'm afraid we have no other alternative," the Hur'dha answered her staring into the dark horizon that drew closer with every passing moment.

_Location: Sunnydale  
Year: 2003_

"Tell me something... doesn't the thought of spreading your powers to all these girls bother you in any way?" Mina asked fiddling around with the knife she held in her hand, behind her back. Buffy couldn't have noticed it - it looked like she was leaning on the wall. Besides, the slayer was too busy staring into the horizon to pay any attention to her. Mina wasn't very happy she had to do this. Killing people wasn't her thing, but she had to make this one sacrifice if it was absolutely necessary and apparently, it was.

"Why should it?" Buffy began speaking startling her out of her thoughts. "Actually, I think it's the best idea I've ever had. I'm happy thinking that starting tomorrow no slayer will ever have to go through what I went by herself. Don't get me wrong, there were some great things along the way, great friends, but I wouldn't wish it to anyone..." Mina was only half-listening to what she was saying as she neared her, careful not to make a sound. The blow would have to be quick and powerful. Buffy wouldn't have any time to react or fight back. As the slayer continued her speech, Mina took the knife from behind her back and prepared to strike. A hand suddenly covered her mouth and pulled her back next to the wall.

"Mina, Mina, when will you learn?" Willow asked and in a flash of dark green light, they found themselves in the hallways of Sunnydale High. Only then, the witch let her go.

"You idiot! I was this close to fulfilling my destiny!" Mina yelled angrily.

"And destroying the world in the process," Willow continued her phrase.

"What are you talking about?" she asked confused.

"If she dies now, so does the world," the witch told her.

"The hellmouth," she realized.

"Now you're finally starting to use your brain," Willow smiled.

"This is more complicated than I thought," Mina sighed.

"Really?" the witch chuckled. "I'll give you a free tip: never mess with time, the tables turn too easily around. It's like a really complicated code, it's tricky to get the right combination and even if you do, things will never go as planned."

"Gee, thanks for the insight, but I think it's a little late for that," Mina said rising the ring of Batt- Hura in the air. "Are you gonna try to stop me?"

"How could I?" Willow smiled mockingly.

"What the hell are you planning?" she asked suspiciously.

"Me? I'm just here for the ride. It's a nice show you've been putting on," she answered her. "Best I've seen in years. I just want to see how it ends."

"You are one fucked up individual," Mina said before yelling, tightening her grip on the ring: "Nema esta, nema deo, nema tempo ecco jero, vero nento, quera lento, en e tempo mera uno!" As she disappeared in a flash of light, Willow suddenly felt something strange, a disturbance in the spell that had just been made and yelled, too late:

"NO!"

_Time: Anytime and nowhen  
Location: The subalternative translation time stream_

Time was beginning to rearrange itself to its initial order, but it was a more difficult process this time around. In its reevaluation of its anomalies, time threw Lonny back into the past alongside Spike and Angel. Rupert was returned to Angel's office in 2083 and it is here that things went wrong. Angered, Rupert had used the ring of Batt-Hura at the exact time that, 80 years into the past, Mina did as well. As the existence and therefor the use of the two rings was an anomaly, the two spells clashed with one another. For a very brief moment, in this subalternative translation time stream, Mina and Rupert passed one another and their rings touched. They both felt a jolt of pain pass through their bodies and the events of the last few days - those they had known and not known about - flashed before their eyes like a brief nightmare. Looking back to see what had caused it, they spotted each other.

Mina frowned - she had no idea who he was and how he had gotten this second ring of Batt-Hura, but he looked oddly familiar. Rupert's lips formed the word 'you' before they disappeared from each other's eyesight.

This clash had caused some changes in the rings. While Mina's received the ability to transport into the past without having to pass through the Hollow Crossroads, Rupert's had been caught in the other ring's spell and the young watcher was sent because of this further into the past than he had wanted. Combined with the nightmarish visions - or so he thought as it was in fact time itself rearranging at that very moment - he landed in a very familiar place.

_Los Angeles  
Year: 2053_

_Location: Willow Rosenburg's penthouse apartment_

Rupert landed with a thud on the soft rugs laying on the floor. He looked around. He had no idea where he was. He stood up and felt a dizziness overwhelming him. He suddenly remembered the odd encounter he had had somewhere in between the future and the past, a place as far as he was concerned, did not exist. Time travel was a direct trip from A to B with no other stops or a clear trajectory between them. The truth was such a place existed but it was far too fast and intense for a human being to perceive with his natural senses. When the spells of the two rings clashed with one another, the passage way was slowed down considerably for a few moments, giving the two bearers of the rings enough time to be conscious of their surroundings and each other's presence.

Rupert looked around the luxurious apartment and wondered in what way this place was connected to Willow Rosenburg or the girl he had seen - Mina Parker no doubt - and what exactly had caused this spell error to occur. He suddenly heard glass smashing in the other room. He was going to get an answer sooner than he had expected. He walked carefully over to the door and cracked it open. He couldn't see anyone inside. Another glass smashed to the floor, this time followed by a rather desperate:

"Damn it!" It was the voice of a woman or a girl. At least, he could tell, it was definitely not Willow. He opened the door fully and entered the room. He could now see who had spoken. It was a girl, with her back turned to him, fiddling with something at the bar of the living room.

"Excuse me...," Rupert said, trying to get her attention. The girl startled and spun around. He recognized her instantly. She was Fred 2, the great-granddaughter of one of Angel's original employees, Winifred Burkle. Her face was covered in tears. In one of her hands she held a whiskey bottle, while the other, he noted surprised, was missing. It wasn't bleeding, but it was simply not there anymore. He realized she had been smashing the glasses while attempting to pour herself a drink.

"What do you want?" she asked, not really finding his presence there a surprise.

"Where am I?" he asked confused.

"LA, city of Angels," she said, her voice betraying the fact that she had disregarded the glass and had drunk directly out of the bottle a couple of times.

"You're drunk," he noticed.

"Well, trying," she said gesturing towards the bottle. "You want some?"

"No, thanks," he said and looked around. "What are you doing here?"

"Now there's a long, complicated story. And come to think of it some of it is your fault. If you hadn't been so hell bent on putting Angel away for a couple of centuries I would've never winded up on those crosswords," she said as she struggled to move a glass with her wrist.

"Crossroads?" he asked even more confused than before.

"Oh, you know the ones. I mean, geez, you've got one of those," she pointed towards his ring of Batt-Hura. Rupert still seemed clueless. "You have no idea what I'm talking about," she realized. "That's weird. Well, lucky you, not much to see anyway."

"Tell me about these, uhm, crossroads," he suggested casually.

"No way, there's probably a reason you don't know about them and I'm not gonna spoil anyone's master plan by blabbering on about something I shouldn't be blabbering on about. No matter how drunk I am," she told him.

"What year is this?" Rupert gave up. She obviously wasn't willing to tell him anything about the crossroads and arguing with a drunk wasn't something he liked doing.

"2053," she threw herself in a chair. "I went to a funeral. This happened afterwards," she held up the arm with no hand. "I think it could've been worse though. I was lucky Willow stopped it before it took out more."

"Willow? You don't say," a smile crossed his lips. "And what's this 'it'?"

"I have no idea. The 'it' that turned my hand to ashes and her into a statue," she pointed towards the Willow ash statue somewhere on the other side of the room. Rupert was surprised he hadn't noticed it before. "Oh, wow, look at that," her left hand had suddenly returned.

"What the...," Rupert couldn't believe it.

"How do you suppose that happened?" Fred 2 asked staring at her hand mesmerized. "Hey, if the hand's back, then Willow..." she looked up and noticed Rupert had walked over to the ash statue and was preparing to smash it. "What are you doing!"

"I just want to see if she can get out of this one," he backhanded the statue and Willow's head flew off her shoulders and the rest of the statue crumbled to dust. "Well, that's as dead as a person can get."

"Tsk, tsk, Rupert, I'm surprised you'd think that little of me," Willow's voice suddenly said startling the young watcher.

"Willow!" Fred 2 said enthusiastically.

"Hi, Fred," Willow saluted the girl smiling. "I'm sorry about what happened. I didn't mean to leave you in the dark like that."

"It's okay, I found an occupation," the teenager said gesturing towards the whiskey bottle she was still holding in her right hand.

"It's not her," Rupert told Fred 2. "Not that one anyway," he pointed towards the pile of ashes on the floor.

"There isn't more than one Willow," Fred 2 said as she put the whiskey bottle back in the bar.

"What do you mean?" Rupert asked frowning.

"You don't know about that either?" she looked surprised. Willow didn't speak up. "I read my great- grandfather's journals. He wrote an entire one only about this. He thought it was absolutely fascinating. Which, by the way," she looked at Willow, "it is."

"Oh, I remember," the witch recalled talking to Wesley about what she had gone through down to the very last detail, but she had never thought that he'd write it all down in a journal.

"One Willow," Rupert repeated finally seeming to understand some things. "I can't kill you because there's always going to be another Willow. Inside time."

"You're catching on quick," Willow said amused.

"How could I not see it earlier? Whatever changed you made you temporally unique. All Willows will remember me, no matter the period I pass through simply because it's always you," he frowned, but then suddenly realized something: "You're unique now, but you weren't always like this..."

"If you're Willow-Willow, do you know where my brother is?" Fred 2 asked turning towards the witch. "I haven't seen him in days, I'm kinda worried. Is he still at the crossroads?"

"He's fighting Mary 7," Rupert answered her absently as his mind processed all the new information, searching for a solution. He remembered Wes 2, Harmony and Mary 7 from the whirlwind of images he had seen during the clash of the two rings of Batt- Hura.

"Mary 7," the name sounded familiar to Fred 2, but she couldn't quite place her.

"A slayer in an advanced psychotic state," Rupert explained. "Held in the secret basement of Wolfram & Hart."

"You have to save him!" Fred 2 looked at Willow with desperation in her eyes.

"Don't worry, he's fine," Willow assured her.

"I have to see him," Fred 2 protested. "Can you take me there?"

"I have the power to travel through my various past selves, but I can't transport others through time. And a gateway to the crossroads can only be opened with a magical item," Willow explained.

"Like the ring of Batt-Hura," Fred 2 suddenly noticed the ring hanging from Rupert's belt.

"I know!" Rupert realized where he had to go in order to kill off Willow permanently. He unhooked the ring from his belt and rising it up in the air he prepared to say the spell, but he was caught off guard by Fred 2, who tried to pull the ring out of his hands. "What are you doing?" he asked as he struggled to free the ring from the girl's hands.

"I'm going to see my brother!" Fred 2 said determined to not let go.

"Kids, you shouldn't be playing with a magical item as powerful as that!" Willow warned them, but the two wouldn't listen. She tried to separate them, but it was too late.

"Nema esta, ne-nema deo," Rupert had begun the spell and had a hard time speaking it while fighting with Fred 2 over the ring. "Ne-ma - tempo ecco je-ro, vero nen-to, quera lento, en e tempo me-mera uno!" The two disappeared in a flash of light.

"Well, I know at least one person who won't be too happy about this," Willow said sighing.

_Los Angeles  
Year: 2003  
Location: The Wolfram & Hart Archives_

Holding a lantern above the book, Mina examined the text with a frown. It was called "Temporal displacement and disparity in the natural space continuum" by one doctor Friedrich Alexander Munsler. She was lucky Wolfram & Hart had translations of almost every existing book in the universe and she could read the text calmly without trying her best to decipher the German language.

"When several consecutive temporal changes occur, a certain disparity can appear between them, a short lapse of time in which a person would be able to keep the consequences of one temporal displacement while altering or erasing the existence of a second such displacement or even adding a new set of changes to the initial temporal manipulation The theory initially formulated for the...bla bla, don't need that," Mina said as she read on. This was what she had been looking for, but the question was: how could she find this time lapse between her two jumps into the past? She needed the first change she had made to still exist, but as far as she understood she had erased it when she had made the second trip. While her first jump had taken her to the outskirts of Sunnydale, the second had taken over her already present body on the hellmouth, right after the dinner the night before Sunnydale's fall. But how could things go the same when Spike and Angel had decided to tell Buffy about her presence and Lonny was in the house? They couldn't. She wondered if this disparity offered her some sort of backdoor to the same timeline and the alterations she had made before Lonny's intervention. She looked at the ring of Batt-Hura. "I wish you'd have a handbook or something."

She looked around the darkened corridors of the archives and got an idea. She searched for a source book. One that could help her browse through the gigantic archives without going insane. Most of them were up in the research department, but she knew at least one would be kept down there as a catalog. She found it on the table of the supervisor of the archives who she had knocked out after landing there. She opened it, rose it to her lips and said:

"The Ring of Batt-Hura. English version." The pages of the book filled with text. "Used mostly for spells involving time travel. Tell me something I don't know. When used for an extended period of time, it forms a paranormal bond with its bearer. That's new. Bla-bla," she skipped over the parts she knew about and after a while she came across something interesting: "If more than one major time manipulation takes place, time creates certain disparity between the alterations...There's that word again. Disparity," she stared at the book for a moment and then deciding it was worth a try, she rose the book to her lips again and said: "The Ring of Batt-Hura. English Version. Simplified to common vocabulary." Surprisingly, the text appeared again but in a simpler version. "Now we're getting somewhere. If time is changed more than once, in a very short period of time, the changes made by the last manipulations will affect time at a much slower pace, causing a difference between time periods. Definitely not what I was looking for. Overwriting a temporal spell. Hmm. When a person wants to correct a temporal spell he only needs to transport himself into his body before he altered time. Already done that. The fusion or combination of two temporal spells. When a person wants to make two time alterations at once. In order to do so, he must transport himself directly in the moment when the first alteration took place. Bingo. Ring, you and I probably have a special bond by now, so if we're gonna screw with time again, just make sure we do it the right way, okay?" she rose the ring of Batt-Hura in the air and prepared to make another jump into the past.

_Sunnydale  
Time: 2003_

Fred 2 hit the ground hard. She hurt her right arm badly in the process. When she stood up, she was very dizzy and felt nauseous. The spell, she suspected, had done most of the damage. She realized that she had feathers in one of her hands. She had probably ripped them off the ring of Batt-Hura during her struggle with Rupert. She sighed and looked around herself. Her eyesight was a little blurry. She tried to focus on a big panel ahead. When she finally realized what was written on it she let out:

"Oh. My. God," she was staring dirrectly at the "Welcome to Sunnydale" sign.

_End Part 13_


	15. A 100 percent gasoline

_**Note:** I just wanted to let everyone know that Birth Right has won the Flashback Award (best past/future fic) at the Potential Awards (again, thank you, Ragna:D)_

**Part 14  
A 100 percent gasoline**

_Location: Sunnydale  
Year: 2003_

Mina blinked several times before she realized where she was. She felt like she had been asleep for a few good hours, lost somewhere in a time and place she could not comprehend. She looked around: the same Summers home, the same old Sunnydale, the same old day she had leaped into two times before. But this, she realized, wasn't where she was suppose to land. She was leaned down next to the open basement door listening in to Spike and Angel's conversation.

"I guess our connection isn't all that special, huh? You know, for a moment there...," she stopped, realizing she was talking to a ring. She sighed and closed her eyes for a moment. What was she suppose to do now? Spike and Angel would have her thrown out of the house. Willow would do her little magic trick and poof the world would be slayer full. Again. Maybe she had been wrong in thinking the whole slayer kind was a mistake. The thing was she had never been wrong before. She got up and opening the door to the basement fully, she went downstairs.

"Yeah, but apparently we already screwed up once. For her sake at least..." Angel's words trailed off when he saw Mina coming into the basement.

"What do you want?" Spike asked a little surprised to see her there.

"I'm done here," Mina said and the two vampires looked at her confused. "Time is just too fucked-up to be messed with. I tried my best and both times I wound up screwing up on a major scale."

"Both times?" Angel asked rising his eyebrows.

"Yeah. And believe me, the second time was so much worse," she assured him and then went on: "All things aside, I am a slayer. I wanted to be the slayer, but I came to the conclusion that that's stretching it. I want to save the world and just a few hours ago I practically destroyed it."

"So you're giving up? Just like that?" Spike asked incredulously.

"Yeah, just like that," Mina nodded.

"We can go home then?" Spike smiled. "Well, this was bloody easy. Sure you don't want to axe us as soon as we turn our backs?"

"I don't really have a reason to," Mina pointed out. "But you can't go home yet."

"Why?" Angel asked curious, partially realizing that he and Spike wouldn't be able to travel back to their time by themselves as they had been sent there by the Hur'dha and he assumed only he could bring them back.

"The cycle isn't complete," she explained and Spike shot her a confused look. "Usually, a trip in the past is cut short when you alter something drastically. I already did that. Twice. If then the same timeline is accessed again by the same individual - namely me - he leaps back into his own body still present in the past. If I use the ring to leave now, the old version of me might reappear and continue doing what I did before. And believe me, you don't want that. So I have to stay here until the moment I was transported back into the future. That would be shortly before the battle of the hellmouth," she concluded.

"Okay, that's you, but what about us?" Angel asked not understanding where their place in her explanation was.

"Well, since you were sent here to watch over me and probably to stop me in case I try something funny," she smiled. "I assume the big blue guy won't take you back until I'm gone."

"Good point," Spike said, suddenly feeling very excited by the prospect of staying in Sunnydale for another day without having to worry about the rogue teenage slayer.

"And since I'm here anyway, I was thinking maybe I could actually do what I told Buffy I came here to do. Fight the good fight. I owe her at least that much after everything I've done," she looked down at her feet and then stumbled to say: "You can still watch me, of course."

"Like that did us any good the last two times," Spike noted.

"I don't know if I should believe you or not," Angel said pondering her words. "You're not exactly the most trust worthy person in the world."

"I know I'm not, but I'm laying all my cards in front of you. If you tell me to stay put right now and not raise a finger, I won't," she promised. There was a moment of silence. Angel looked back at Spike.

"What do you think?" he asked, not really feeling up to making a decision by himself.

"Let the girl fight. We can sick Lonny on her. She won't leave her alone for one instant and I...uhm, we, can take a little break," Spike smiled.

"I think we've been taking too many breaks," Angel pointed out, saddened.

"Think you've lost the old edge, do you?" Spike immediately read his thoughts. "It's all right, old timer, I'm here to back you up."

"Your kind of help I don't need," Angel frowned and headed towards the stairs. "We have to talk to Lonny."

_Location: The Hollow Crossroads  
Time: Absolutely nowhen_

"Why am I letting you carry on like this?" the Hur'dha asked frustrated.

"Cause ya love me?" Willow smiled amused.

"Love," he smirked. "Let's not get into that argument again."

"There was an argument? I remember me trying to be persuasive and you constantly shaking your head in utter denial," she reminded him.

"Willow," he frowned.

"Okay, so the truth is things haven't been going exactly as I planned," she confessed. "A person lost in time here, another there, but it's all coming together quite nicely. If you think of the big picture."

"This is time we're talking about. There isn't a small or a big picture," the Hur'dha glanced at her.

"I just need one properly placed pawn and...," she snapped her fingers, "check mate. Domino effect. Call it what you want."

"And which pawn are we talking about?" the Hur'dha asked rising an eyebrow.

"Do you even have to ask?" the witch smirked. "And to think I could've solved it all so simply from the beginning."

"You didn't want to," the blue creature pointed out. "I asked you to."

"You practically begged me to," she smiled.

"Did not," the Hur'dha complained at the usage of that word.

"Did so," her smile widened into a grin. "But the past's the past and let's face it, it's just too fucked-up at the moment to risk any further intervention."

"True," he nodded. "But your plan better work out."

"Don't worry, in case it doesn't work, I have a back-up," she assured him.

"I've heard those words before. I don't particularly like them. What was it you told me once about your so- called back-up plan? Ah, yes, extreme, but efficient," he remembered. "Two words, I again, don't enjoy hearing. Especially from you."

"Oh, what are you afraid of?" she chuckled and her eyes flashes black for an instant before returning to normal.

"What am I not afraid of at this point? Destruction of all time?" he smiled. "Been there. Done that."

_Location: Sunnydale  
Year: 2003_

"You have got to be shitting me!" Lonny yelled at the two vampires angrily.

"Would you keep it down? People are actually sleeping," Angel pointed out.

"Do I look like I fucking care at this point?" Lonny shot him a dirty look. "She just destroyed time and you're here telling me she's suddenly grown a fucking conscience? Give me a break! How exactly gullible are you two idiots?"

"Hey!" Spike protested. From the living room, Dawn looked curiously towards the kitchen where all the screaming was coming from.

"That's the whole point," Mina stopped Lonny before she continued her rant. "I wasn't suppose to destroy the world, but apparently by stopping the slayer line that's exactly what I'd be doing."

"Bullshit, this is all just some twisted plan you came up with to do god knows what," Lonny told her harshly.

"It's over, Lonny. I'd go home right now, if I could, but that's not an option for another ten hours or so," Mina said regarding the vampire.

"Did she even tell you exactly how she destroyed the world?" Lonny stared at the two vampires. Mina looked away. "She didn't. Figures."

"How come you know about this?" Spike suddenly realized the strangeness of it all. While they couldn't remember any of the alterations of the past, Mina and Lonny both seemed to be aware of them.

"Who, me? I'm just another time anomaly trying to cope thanks to that bitch over there," she gestured towards Mina. "It's a whole weird story. But let's get back to her, destroying the world. She stabbed your precious little Buffy through the heart. Literally. She put a knife through her. It sent the world spiraling into hell central. Actually, non-existence."

"You killed her?" Spike stared at Mina coldly.

"She had to," Angel let out an unnecessary sigh. "Destroying the slayer multitude wouldn't be enough to continue with the old slayer line. She's still alive."

"What!" Spike looked at Angel shocked.

"Buffy, she's still alive. In our time," Angel repeated.

"She's like a 105," Mina nodded.

"And you...you bastard!" Spike lunged towards Angel, but Lonny stopped his blow midair. "You knew about this?"

"Yes and no. I was suspecting it. I saw some of the paperwork. The house..." she began, but Angel gave her a look that made it clear she should stop.

"I never thought you really meant it," Spike gave his grandsire a disgusted look. "That you'd keep her away from me. Not after everything that happened. You told me she was dead!"

"It wasn't my choice to make," Angel said calmly.

"She...," Spike's voice choked. "She told you to let me think she was dead?"

"She didn't want you to see her grow old. Not as old as she is now. She knew I'd understand, but that it would break your heart," Angel told him.

"Didn't she know the simple thought of her being dead would break my heart?" Spike asked looking absently at the floor.

"Can we get back to the issue at hand?" Lonny interfered. "So everyone's moping cause Buffy's old, boo-hoo. It's just the way it is. If you wanted it any other way you should've turned her a long time ago, but you didn't. Get over it," she hadn't brought herself to turning her father either, not even when he had been on his death bed. She loved him too much and she knew he would hate himself for becoming a vampire, the thing that had most traumatized his youth and that had taken away from him too many people close to his heart. Her own transformation had been a very low blow for him, but in time he had grown accustomed to it. "This is exactly the kind of thing she's been taking advantage of. Your bickering, your slobbering over Buffy. One moment of distraction and poof, the world can go haywire..."

"Would you listen to me for one moment?" Mina interrupted her.

"Like hell I am," Lonny gave the slayer a dirty look.

"Lonny, calm down," Angel told the vampire. "What do you want to do? Snap her neck just in case she's pulling some kind of trick on us?"

"Well, it'd be a start," Lonny smirked.

"We don't kill people, remember?" Angel reminded her.

"Maybe we could make an exception?" the vampire suggested.

"Lonny!" Angel snapped at her.

"Fine, do it your way, but when the world starts spinning the wrong way again don't go crying to me, okay?" Lonny rose her hands up in surrender. "But I'll be keeping a close eye on you," she warned Mina.

"Go ahead. I have nothing to hide," the slayer told her smiling.

_Los Angeles  
Location: The Underground of Wolfram & Hart Demon Hunting Inc  
Year: Static Time - no precise date_

Rupert landed with a thud on the floor. He got up and shook off the feeling of coldness that had crept up inside him. Looking down at the ring of Batt-Hura he still clutched in his hand, he noticed it was missing a few feathers. Fred 2's handy work no doubt. He sighed and suddenly realized he wasn't where he was suppose to be, namely Sunnydale.

"Oh, great, another terrific useless jump through time," he let out as he began walking down the empty corridors. The writing on the doors didn't ring a bell. The place reminded him of a vampire prison. Dark, secluded, underground and locked down tighter than a federal prison. Unfortunately, none of the doors had windows, so he could neither confirm nor put aside his suspicions. He looked back when he heard the footsteps of someone approaching. The closer they came, the more obvious it became that the person coming towards him was in fact running. A blond figure dashed by him without even noticing him. The next thing he knew, he was thrown to the floor by a punch and a girl was hovering over him, pinning him down. Her face, hands and dark hair were stained with blood. She smiled at him wildly:

"I'll be right back," she leaned down and kissed him on the forehead before carving a 7 with her nails in it. Rupert let out a scream of pain. He tried to free himself, but it was useless. The girl was too strong. She - he immediately realized - was a slayer. Before he had another chance to struggle, the girl took off, running after the other woman. As he got up he felt the blood trickling down his face. He forced himself to touch the wound on his forehead and feel it's shape.

"7," he realized and let out an: "Oh no," recognizing the girl, the time and place instantly. She had been none other than Mary 7, one of the most dangerous loose screws in the slayer line. He had to get out of there before she came back. He rose the ring in the air and spoke the incantation. Nothing happened. "Of all the times to bail on me, you picked the worst," he said under his breath and noticed his blood had dripped down on the ring. That was never something good. Smoke suddenly began rising from the ring. It entangled around his arm and began engulfing his upper body. His eyes went wide as he began breathing hard.

_Location: The Hollow Crossroads  
Time: Absolutely nowhen_

The Hur'dha fell to the ground, holding his stomach in pain. Willow looked at him strangely. She hadn't seen him hurt before. Retrieving his hand from around his wounded abdomen, he shockingly realized it was covered in thick blue blood. He gritted his teeth.

"What's wrong?" Willow asked worried.

"Kill him!" he told her in an urgent tone.

"Kill who?" she asked confused.

"The boy! Kill him! NOW! Before it's too late," he said collapsing to the ground.

"Oh shit," the witch let out trying to help the Hur'dha back to his feet.

"GO!" he yelled at her and the witch flew backwards and straight down a distant crossroad, only the echo of her plea remaining behind:

"Hur'dha!"

_Location: Sunnydale  
Year: 2003_

It was morning and the potentials were gathered outside the Summers' home, ready to leave for Sunnydale High. Buffy looked at them from the front porch, lost in her own thoughts. Faith on the other hand seemed excited about the coming battle and Angel's presence there gave her a self confidence boost. Spike was carrying a bag that looked awfully suspicious to Robin and they winded out bickering about it to Buffy and Giles' exasperation. Mina watched them all from inside the house pensively.

"Boo," Angel startled her out of her reverie. "It must be strange for you. Seeing them all like this. They're in your history books after all," he smiled and after a pause, asked: "You're sure you want to do this?"

"Pretty positive about it," she said and gave him an awkward look.

"There's still enough time to back out, if you want. I'll talk to Buffy for you, make up some excuse," he didn't want her to feel obligated to fight simply because her body happened to be in Sunnydale at the time of the battle.

"Turning back? You're kidding, aren't you? If this is some sort of weird tactic to talk me out of it, it isn't working," she assured him.

"Are you okay?" Angel asked thinking she was being a bit too defensive.

"Since when do you care?" she gave him an annoyed look and walked out of the house just as Buffy entered again.

"It's nice to see you two patched things up," she said as she neared him.

"Yeah, we sorted out our differences," Angel replied absently as he stared after Mina.

"Good to hear," Buffy said and gave Angel a small kiss on the lips.

"What was that for?" the vampire asked her smiling and turning his attention fully towards the slayer.

"For good luck," she returned the smile. "I think we'll probably both gonna need some."

"Well, that wasn't enough for the both of us," Angel said and leaned down and kissed her. Gently. Profoundly. Passionately. Like everything they had ever shared together.

"Now that felt really really lucky," she told him when they broke the kiss. She headed out of the house again, with a smile on her lips.

"Oh, I told you to jump on her when you had the chance, but you had to be all boy scout...," Lonny told him grinning as she headed towards the porch. Angel shook his head.

_Location: Sunnydale  
Year: 2003  
Time: Morning, the day before the great battle of Sunnydale_

Fred 2 walked down the empty streets feeling uneasy. She never liked being alone, especially not in a place like Sunnydale. It was creepy, even when it was deserted. Her brother had always teased her about her fear of abandoned places. She sighed. She really wanted to see him, to make sure he was okay, to tell him about everything she had gone through. "One day," she muttered, "we'll be back home laughing about all of this." She let out a nervous laughter. She didn't notice the two bringers following her, on the hunt for stray potential slayers.

When the first one attacked, she was totally taken by surprise and she fell to the ground from the power of the bringer's blow. She managed to avoid the second blow and the bringer's knife while trying to mutter some kind of protection spell, but because of the panic that had filled each and every one of her senses, she just couldn't get it right. She closed her eyes when she saw a second bringer standing above her, knife in hand. There was no escape. Suddenly, a sword impaled itself through one of the bringers, killing him. Then the second bringer that had been standing above her was gone and Fred 2 could hear fighting noises from somewhere near. She stood up and a look of awe and amazement crossed her features. Only two feet away from her Buffy Summers - The Slayer! - was fighting the remaining bringer.

"Are you okay?" the slayer asked her after she killed off the second bringer.

"You're Buffy Summers!" Fred 2 said enthusiastically. "I've heard so much about you! I've studied every existent book on you and...it's an absolute honor to meet you."

"Yeah, that's me, Buffy Summers, slayer extraordinaire," she said amused. "And you're lucky I decided to do a sweep of the neighborhood. We got a surprise visit last night and I thought I should check the streets again, see if anyone's still stuck in Sunnydale. I guess it was a good idea. What's your name?"

"Oh, I'm Fred, I mean Winifred, but my friends call me Fred," the girl extended her hand politely and Buffy shook it, still amused by her giddiness.

"We should get back to the house before more bringers show up," the slayer said and started in the direction of the house with a smiling Fred 2 by her side.

_Los Angeles  
Location: The Underground of Wolfram & Hart Demon Hunting Inc  
Year: Static Time - no precise date_

Rupert looked around in amazement. Somehow, time was passing him by. Or repeating itself. Or both. He had inhaled the smoke from the ring and it had done something to his body. It had altered his physical presence, granting him some strange power over time. It wasn't particularly strong, but it allowed him to transport himself in different areas of the underground maze without walking, by simply fast-forwarding or rewinding his movements. This way, he was able to annul the dreadful wound on his forehead and avoid meeting Mary 7 on the corridor, while still making sure the alteration of the ring would take place by scratching his skin and letting his blood drip down on the ring. While transporting himself through various places in the underground maze, he came across Mary 7 and Harmony fighting, Wes 2 crawling towards the dead bodies of the special ops team and with a little push further ahead in time, he was able to see Wes 2's brilliant plan into motion and Mary 7 stuck in static time.

"Rupert!" Willow's voice boomed through the corridors startling the young watcher as well as Wes 2 and Harmony who were still inside Mary 7's cell. "What the hell have you done!" she asked him, appearing before him with her eyes black and her hair rising above her shoulders, into the air. A sign, no doubt, that she was very very angry.

_Location: Sunnydale  
Year: 2003_

"I'm not worried. As long as Willow can work her spell before they -- see us," Buffy said as the Turok-Han army turned to stare directly at them.

"Ugly little things, aren't they?" Lonny said smiling at Spike. The blonde vampire knew that smile too well. The one Lonny used before she did a whole lot of damage. He put the bag containing his past self next to the wall of the cave, hoping the amulet would do its trick without him being conscious. He looked over at Mina and saw the look of awe on her face. She was fighting the greatest battle in slayer history. He smiled. As the Turok-Han army charged the small group of potentials lead by the two slayers, Kennedy suddenly appeared among them holding the scythe in one hand.

"It's not working!" she told Buffy in a desperate voice.

"What are you talking about?" the slayer's eyes went wide.

"The spell. Something's wrong with it. It's not working," Kennedy repeated, this time more clearly.

"Oh, no," Buffy closed her eyes for a moment before taking the scythe in her hand and telling the others, in a firm voice: "We're on our own."

"It was you!" Lonny immediately pointed an accusing finger at Mina. "You did something!"

"Don't be an idiot! I didn't go anywhere near Willow or her number one girl! You should at least know that since you watched me like a hawk since last night," Mina reminded her and Lonny realized she was right. She hadn't gone anywhere near the witch.

"This isn't the time to fight!" Buffy yelled at them as she took out the first Turok-Han that entered their ranks. As the battle escalated, many of the potentials died and along with them Faith went down like a hero. When all hope seemed to wither away, a light began shinning from the unconscious body of the past Spike, marking the beginning of the destruction of Sunnydale. Spike sighed relieved when he saw the amulet was working. He and Angel helped the remaining potentials out of the hellmouth as Buffy, wounded by one of the Turok-Hans, along with Mina and Lonny tried their best to kill the remaining creatures that had not been taken out by Spike's amulet yet. In the heat of the battle, Buffy hadn't even realized that there were two Spikes or where the light killing the Turok-Hans was coming from.

"Buffy!" Mina called out for the slayer as she was surrounded by three Turok-Hans. Buffy threw her the scythe and with a set of remarkable moves Mina took out all three of them. The light coming from inside the amulet expanded taking out all of the remaining Turok-Hans. The cave began collapsing around them. Spike and Angel returned to the hellmouth to get Buffy and the rest to the surface.

"We can't leave her here," Lonny told the two vampires looking down at the dead Faith.

"We'll take her with us," Angel agreed taking the slayer's body in his arms.

"Buffy! Let's go!" Spike yelled after her. Buffy looked down into the hellmouth as the rock walls crumbled down into it, covering it forever.

"Buffy," Mina called out to her gently, nearing her.

"What?" the slayer looked back at her, suddenly snapped out of her deep thoughts.

"It's over," Mina said and jammed the scythe into her stomach and threw her off the edge into the abyss bellow.

"NO!" Spike could only yell helplessly. Mina turned towards them, with a glorious smile on her face and yelled:

"Suckers!" and throwing them a butterfly kiss, she jumped down into the hellmouth.

_Flashback_

_The Summers' home, that morning_

"Hurry up!" Rona banged on the door of the bathroom loudly.

"Just a minute!" Mina said and looked down at the ring of Batt-Hura smiling. "Take me to the ancient temple of Kaman'ra! We have an incantation to misspell!" A flash of light shone, taking Mina thousands of years into the past to undo the writing of a great spell that would have ensured the spreading of the slayer powers to all potentials in the year 2003. But though Mina - the one that knew of both changes she had made before - was gone, her first apparition into the past was still present in the Summers' home. And it is this Mina that Angel would have an awkward conversation with, not knowing that she had no idea what he was talking about.

_Back in the hellmouth_

As Mina fell into the endless gap, a light encircled her and she disappeared. Angel, Spike and Lonny shortly followed. Somewhere else in time, Wes 2 and Harmony vanished as well. Fred 2, because she was in a past unaffected by the time's whirlwind of change, did not disappear.

_Los Angeles  
Location: The Underground of Wolfram & Hart Demon Hunting Inc  
Year: Static Time - no precise date_

Willow felt the change taking over time and surprisingly, Rupert did as well. The witch's eyes returned to their natural color and she sighed.

"It just had to happen now," she let out and turning towards Rupert, she told him: "Stay put. I'll be right back," and with a wave of her hand the young watcher froze, his features becoming stiff and his reply stopping in his throat. "I have a little something to take care of."

End Part 14


	16. Ashes III: Of Mina Parker

**Part 15  
Ashes III: Of Mina Parker**

_New York City  
Year: 2083_

She walked down the corridors of her highschool like a queen. She was the reigning beauty, the best of the best, the ultimate elite. She was Mina Parker and she was extremely happy. Time - or the ring of Batt-Hura - had taken her home this time, to her family's apartment, sometime during the night. She had awakened the following morning feeling like she owned the world and that this time - she was sure - things had gone precisely as she had wanted. So she had given the slayer a little push to achieve it all, but she hadn't really killed her, the rocks or the hellmouth had done it.

"Well don't you look like a million bucks today!" one of her friends noticed.

"It's just a fabulous day to be alive and kicking," she replied smiling. She vaguely realized that this girl had been a slayer up until yesterday, but now, thanks to her, she was just a simple girl. She looked happy to her, she didn't seem to be missing her powers, her strength. How could she? A little voice inside Mina's head kept asking. How could she, when she had no idea what she had lost? It didn't matter anymore, she was there if she was ever in trouble. She would keep her safe as it was her duty now to protect everyone. She smiled again.

From a distant corner of the hallway, Willow watched her and shook her head.

"When will they ever learn?" she muttered to herself and decided to wait until lunch.

_Location: The Hollow Crossroads  
Time: Absolutely nowhen_

"How are you feeling? Better?" the witch asked the blue creature whose eyes were now darker than she had ever seen them before. It seemed like the life was draining out of them.

"The pain is fading, but it will return if you don't finish what you started," he said standing up and leaning on his wooden staff.

"The circle is closing. It won't be long now," she assured him.

"You and your brilliant plans. You almost got me killed today and normally speaking, I don't die," he pointed out. "I don't know why I ever bothered with you. You're nothing but trouble."

"But a ton of fun, admit it," she grinned and the Hur'dha smiled.

"I suppose I am going to miss you after all this is over," he admitted.

"Oh, don't be like that. You can come visit me anytime. We'll have lunch," she suggested. "We could finally have one of those long discussions we always talked about."

"Well, you could say I have all the time in the world," the Hur'dha said.

"Where's Lonny?" she suddenly realized the vampire should have been there considering time had been altered again.

"Oh, she went back to save the day," he smirked. "But she accidentally leaped back into her first trip into the past."

"Accidentally, huh?" she rose an eyebrow. "And you keep saying I'm the sneaky one."

"Time's been beat up, bruised and cut to pieces one too many times in these last few days. It was time to draw a line," he said and his eyes seemed to light up slightly while he spoke those words.

"And you've had this power all along?" she asked incredulously. "To manipulate the rings?"

"I'm afraid it's a bit more complicated than that. I have...a certain limited power over the ring I made for the vampire, but it only applies in a few particular cases. Like this one for instance. I've simply altered the temporal jump to her first incursion into the past instead of her second," he explained.

"And you think that was wise?" she asked unsure. "Considering Mina has managed to manipulate time a record breaking 3 times, Lonny might be pissed enough to take her out of the game. For good."

"Right now, I really don't see a problem in that," the Hur'dha said seeming very indifferent to Mina's fate.

"And my plan?" she rose her eyebrows questioningly.

"You have a very twisted idea of justice, do you know that?" he looked down at the witch.

"Yeah, maybe, but it's so much more fun," her eyes flashed black and she grinned.

_New York City_

_Year: 2083_

The lunch room was packed with teenagers wearing prep school uniforms and chatting about the latest test or piece of gossip. Mina was seated at a table with three other girls and two boys discussing their English teacher's redundant teaching methods.

"I mean wasn't King the one who revitalized the whole horror genre?" one of the girls asked and Mina nodded approvingly.

"And not only that, the realistic way he described...," she stopped mid-sentence when she saw Willow nearing her lunch table.

"Hello, Mina," the witch smiled at her.

"Could you guys give us a few minutes?" Mina looked back at the other people sitting at the table.

"Sure," one of the boys said standing up. The others followed his example, only one of the girls remaining behind for a moment.

"Are you gonna be okay?" the girl asked Mina while staring at Willow.

"Yeah, I'll be fine," she assured her and the girl left to join the others. Willow sat down at the table opposite Mina.

"It's been a while since I've actually been in a cafeteria. Is the food still as horrible as it used to be?" the witch asked casually.

"What do you want?" Mina interrupted her abruptly.

"Me? I'm just here to talk, so calm down," Willow told her.

"Something tells me you're lying," her voice betrayed her annoyance.

"Well, that something is wrong. In this case," a small smile appeared on her lips. "You know, I have plenty of reasons to hate you, but somehow I just can't bring myself to feel that. Actually, I feel sorry for you."

"You can feel anything you want to, Willow, cause it doesn't matter anymore. I won. I beat the best at their own game. Angel. Spike. Buffy. Lonny. That blue freak. You," she smirked satisfied with herself.

"Did you?" the witch asked leaning back in her chair.

"I did," Mina said firmly.

"You're the slayer?" she stared into her eyes with an amused look on her face.

"Yes," she said positively. "I have the strength. I have the agility. I have it all."

"Did you try them on a vampire, like you did last time?" Willow continued with her questions.

"I didn't have a chance, but I will. Tonight," she assured her.

"I wouldn't if I were you. You might get yourself killed," she warned her.

"I won't. Believe me. I am the slayer and no vampire is going to stop me now," she returned the witch's insistent glare.

"No, you're not," Willow finally said.

"Yes, I am," she slammed her hands on the table drawing the attention of several teenagers.

"No, you're not," she stopped her from protesting by rising her hand in the air. Mina was speaking, but no words were coming out of her mouth. "Just listen to me for a moment, Mina. Yes, you have strength, you have agility, because you've been training all your life. You have a black belt in two forms of karate and you've been doing gymnastics since you were five. But you're not the slayer. You don't have the power to heal faster, you don't have a watcher."

"You're lying," Mina protested.

"Give me your hand," Willow said sighing. The girl extended her hand towards her. Before she had a chance to retract it, Willow made a cut across her palm with a small dagger.

"Au," Mina let out taking her hand away.

"It's just a small cut. How long did it take for this sort of wound to heal when you were a slayer?" Willow asked and Mina stared at her hand. It was a superficial cut. For a slayer, this sort of wound would normally close in under a minute. But now, nothing was happening. The long bloody trail was still open in her palm. And it stung her

"It's-it's..." she stuttered.

"Not healing," the witch completed her phrase.

All of Mina's happiness, all of her liveliness drained out of her, leaving behind just an empty shell. A being that couldn't even cry. A girl who had just found out that her biggest dream had been a lie. She was still staring at her wounded hand and not believing what she was seeing.

"Who...who...is she?" she managed to mutter.

"I'll show you," Willow said and rising from the table, took her by the hand and guided her out of the lunch room just as the bell announced the end of the break and the beginning of a new class. As they crossed the busy hallways, Mina absently wondered where they were going. It didn't take long for her to get an answer as Willow stopped in the middle of the corridor and pointed towards someone: "There."

"I can't see her...," Mina said but then finally noticed which girl the witch had pointed at. It was a clumsy teenage girl with glasses, with her uniform hanging over her too frail body like it was two numbers too big, with her hands full of books and having a hard time passing through the mass of teenagers heading off to classes. It didn't take long for someone to knock her off her feet and for her books to go flying all over the place. A few girls walking by laughed, not bothering to help her up.

"Gee, thanks!" the girl yelled after the boy that her knocked her off her feet.

"That..," Mina laughed dryly. "That's the slayer?"

"She doesn't know it yet," Willow told her. "Her predecessor died a few days ago in New Delhi. But she'll find out today," she gestured towards the glass doors of the school, behind which a man in a tweed costume checking his watch could be seen. "So you see some things are just meant to be. You were made to be a slayer, that much I can tell you, but so were many others, just like you. Sonia Mashenka. Angelina Hayes. None of them were slayers, because the slayer line only touched one person at a time, leaving many destinies unfulfilled. And that one was never the best, the bravest, but the one person that needed it the most. Now, I think it's time things were put back to their proper place, don't you think?" she asked her, but suddenly got a strange vibe. "Oh, wait..." time was changing again. And this time, for the better.

_Location: Sunnydale  
Year: 2003_

"C'mon, I'll introduce you around," Buffy told the teenager as she lead her through the Summers home. "It's kinda messy. There's a hell lot of people living in here right now."

"This is so...awesome!" Fred 2 let out excited.

"I'm glad you like it," Buffy said amused and noticing the absence of the potentials she asked Andrew, the first person they came across, "Where is everybody?"

"Willow and Giles are researching that spell she has to use tomorrow. Anya and Xander are...I don't know where. And Kennedy's doing a little training with the potentials out in the backyard," he answered her and looked over at Fred 2 curiously: "And whose this?"

"Andrew - Fred. Fred - Andrew," Buffy made the introductions and headed towards the backdoor.

"Nice to meet you," Fred 2 told him before following Buffy outside.

They landed directly in the middle of the fight between Lonny and Mina. Buffy shook her head and frowned.

"Enough!" she yelled at the two, but they didn't hear her. "Enough already!" she neared them and pulled Lonny off Mina. "Who are you? And what exactly do you think you're doing?" she addressed the vampire.

"Lonny?" Fred 2 asked surprised to see the vampire there.

"You know her?" Buffy turned towards her.

"Freddie! I thought I lost you," Lonny said going over to the teenager and ruffling her hair.

"You did," Fred 2 chuckled. "You have no idea what I've been through!"

"Oh, no, you have no idea what I've been through," Lonny replied.

"Does anyone want to explain to me what's going on?" Buffy asked crossing her hands over her chest.

"We know each other," Fred 2 told the slayer.

"Do you know her too?" Buffy asked pointing towards Mina.

"I don't think she does," Mina told her nearing them. She didn't remember she had run into her and her brother on the hallways of Wolfram & Hart when they had been in Angel's company.

"Fred, meet Mina Parker," Lonny told the teenager and Fred 2 stared at Mina incredulously.

"It's you!" she yelled and surprisingly, attacked Mina. Not physically of course, but by using a series of small spells she had learnt over the years. "Hetta nea!" Mina flew on her back. "Jeda crenendo!" she began spinning on the ground.

"Stop it! Right now!" Buffy told Fred 2, but Lonny told her calmly, pointing towards Mina:

"She's here to kill you."

"But she...," Buffy protested as Mina flew through the air and hit the fence hard.

"Trust me, she wants you dead," Lonny assured her.

"Apporto!" Mina fell to the ground and the ring of Batt-Hura flew towards Fred 2 who caught it easily in one hand and broke it in two. Mina gasped and her eyes went wide before she disappeared in a flash of blinding light.

"You gotta be shitting me! That's all we had to do?" Lonny couldn't believe it.

"We were sent here to stop her. From killing you," Fred 2 told the slayer, still holding the broken ring of Batt-Hura in one hand.

"By who?" Buffy asked.

"Angel," Lonny answered instead of Fred 2.

"Thank him for me then," Buffy told her.

"We finally did it," Lonny told Fred 2 smiling. "We finally stopped her. You and me. The lethal duo. This could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship." She suddenly realized she still had the second ring of Batt-Hura with her. Unhooking it from her belt, she handed it to Buffy, telling her: "You hold on to this. It might come in handy someday."

"Thanks," Buffy didn't really know what to say, not understanding what the object she was holding was or what troubles it would cause in the future.

"Time to go," Lonny heard the voice of the Hur'dha saying and suddenly found herself on the Hollow Crossroads along with Fred 2. The blue creature looked at them smiling:

"Congratulations, ladies, you've just spared me a lot of trouble."

"I'm just sorry I didn't get to kick Mina's sorry ass a little more," Lonny complained.

"Let's just say Mina won't be a problem anymore," he assured her.

"Is she dead?" Lonny asked curious.

"No, but I think she just had a change of heart," the Hur'dha told her.

"Whatever, but I think I'll be hating her for the rest of my days," Lonny confessed.

"Then she's lucky to be living in New York," the Hur'dha told her smiling. "And I have a surprise for you," he turned towards Fred 2 and pointed towards her brother who Harmony was helping to stand somewhere behind them.

"Wes!" Fred 2 ran to her twin brother and hugged him tightly.

"Easy with the hug, sis, I'm hurting over here," he told her gently, not letting go of her though. "I missed you."

"I missed you too," Fred 2 said and Harmony smiled.

"You're making me all mushy and stuff!" she told the two and wrapped them both in a painfully strong hug. She had forgotten about her vampire strength.

"Are they gonna forget everything? With time being back on its track and all?" Lonny asked the Hur'dha, but the creature shook his head.

"No. I've made sure of that. Considering what you've all been through, I think it would be a shame if you did," he said as Spike and Angel suddenly landed in front of them.

"What happened?" Spike asked rubbing the back of his neck where he had hurt himself when he had landed on the crossroads. "Buffy!" he suddenly remembered. "She's dead!"

"Everything's been fixed now," Lonny assured him.

"We can go home?" Angel asked hopeful and the Hur'dha nodded:

"Yes, you can. This place is beginning to be far too crowded."

_Los Angeles  
Location: The Underground of Wolfram & Hart Demon Hunting Inc  
Year: Static Time - no precise date_

"Time to wake up, Rupert," Willow snapped her fingers unfreezing the young watcher. "I've come to a decision about you."

"Really?" he asked cockily.

"Oh, yes. At first, I thought I absolutely had to kill you, but now, I stumbled over a second solution. I'm going to erase your mind. And I don't mean, small, last couple of days erasing, I'm talking tabula rasa. A fresh start. Cause you badly need one. You won't remember who did this to you, who I am, all that you'll remember is your watcher training. And I'm just dying to see if you'll wind up being as big a jerk as you are now again. I want to see if it's the blood or the breeding that made you the man you are today," she told him, her eyes flashing black.

"You'll have to catch me first," he told her and prepared to make a time jump, but surprisingly found that he couldn't rise the ring of Batt-Hura into the air.

"Oh, yes, that little trick you've learnt," she was holding the staff of the Hur'dha in one hand. "I've been...authorized to remove it." A blue mist flowed out of the staff and encircled the young watcher making him scream in agony. The ring of Batt- Hura fell to the floor with an empty sound. "Goodbye, Rupert. I hope you'll be a better man in your new life."

_End Part 15_


	17. Extinguisher

**Author's note:** This being the epilogue and all, I want to ask everyone who has been reading this story to please(pretty please with sugar on) leave their final thoughts and questions(which I'll answer through e-mail) on the review column :D Also I want to thank all the great people that have been supporting this story, especially NoAlias, Tariq and Stray here at and Ruth, Dana and Christine from the fanfic groups. And of course Izzy, my wonderful beta reader.

**Epilogue**

**Extinguisher**

_Los Angeles  
Year: 2083_

Location: Wolfram & Hart Demon Hunting Inc.

"Which desk do you want?" Fred 2 asked her brother as she wheeled him into their new office.

"The one next to the windows," Wes 2 said pointing towards a large wooden desk on the other side of the office.

"I think it was nice of Angel to let us have an office together, don't you think?" she asked him as she pushed him towards his new desk.

"Yeah, I think he glued two of the old ones together. He probably thought about it before we even came here," Wes 2 told his sister as he admired the view of the office.

"Probably because of the whole twin thing," Fred 2 nodded.

"Do you feel that too?" Wes 2 looked up at his sister.

"Feel what?" she asked smiling.

"Like you're home," he replied staring into the horizon. "Like you're finally home."

"Yeah, I do. I think we're in for a bumpy ride," she told him. "I mean look what happened on our first day here."

"Bumpy, yes, even a little scary, but fun," he agreed.

"Very fun," she smiled and leaned her head on her brother's and wrapped her arms around his shoulders.

_Los Angeles_

_Year: 2083_

_Location: A graveyard_

"Hey, you," Lonny said smiling as she neared the grave and removed a few dried flowers from it. She crouched down in front of it and put the six pack she was holding in one hand at her feet. "It's been a while, huh?" she looked at the grave and let out an unnecessary sigh. She wished the grave could answer her, but it never did. She sat down on the ground and leaned her back on the grave. She opened a beer and put it beside it before opening another one for herself. She took a sip of beer and closed her eyes.

"It's been an awfully long day, dad. For a moment there, I almost saw you again. I could barely help it. I was just a few miles away from you. And now you're gone again," she opened her eyes. "I didn't go cause I remembered what you told me once, a long time ago: sometimes you gotta do some things you don't want to and give up on something you really want just so you can do the right thing. To save the world. Well, the world's safe now. So here's to that! To the world!" she touched her beer bottle to the one laying on the grave. "Cheers." She sighed again and reached out to touch the letters carved into the stone that read "Charles Gunn. Devoted Friend. Beloved Father."

_Year: 2083  
Location: Rio the Janeiro_

"C'mon, Willow, we're missing all the sun!" Danielle complained as Willow fiddled around the kitchen making herself a fruit salad.

"You go, I don't feel like staying in the sun today," the witch told her staring at the Ocean through the beach house's windows.

"What happened to you this morning?" the girl asked her stealing a piece of orange from her salad. "You were gone for a few hours and when you came back you were all...upside down."

"I was not," Willow protested.

"Hello, you bought a beach house because you didn't like the carnations in the hotel's lobby," Danielle pointed out.

"Okay, so maybe I am a little out of it," she admitted. "But don't worry, I'll be fine by morning."

"I just wish you'd tell me what happened," Danielle said sighing.

"I can't, it's a secret," Willow winked at her. The slayer smiled.

"Hey, whose that coming up to the house?" she stared out the window.

"Where?" Willow asked following her gaze. She smiled when she came across the tall blue creature walking towards the beach house. "I guess I'm going to have some company."

"Do you need me to stay?" Danielle asked looking back at her.

"No, go," she told her. "Just don't wonder too far away."

"I won't," she promised and headed out of the house just as the Hur'dha climbed up the stairs to enter.

"Bored already?" Willow asked him smiling.

"After having so many people around...it leaves a certain emptiness," the Hur'dha admitted.

"Sit then," she pointed towards a chair in the kitchen and the Hur'dha sat down on it. The tall blue creature looked awkward on that little chair and Willow chuckled. "How about some tea?"

"That would be lovely," he said smiling.

"So Angel really had a son?" she asked as she began preparing the tea.

"Oh, yes, it was all because of Wolfram & Hart. They decided they wanted Angel on their side so they brought back Darla who was..."

_Year: 2083  
Location: the Northern Canadian Region_

"Who is it?" the old woman asked standing up from her chair with difficulty and heading towards the door.

"It's me," Angel said and the woman's wrinkled lips curled into a smile as she opened the door.

"Young and hot like always, huh?" she asked him as she stood aside to let him enter the wooden cabin. "I swear you keep looking younger. Or is it just me getting older?" she headed back towards her chair.

"I don't understand why you keep being so stubborn about this. You'd live absolutely perfectly in LA. You'd be closer to me, the SA, Willow," Angel pointed out.

"And I don't know why you keep insisting on this. You know full well why I don't want to go back there. I love you and I love Willow, but I don't want to be treated like an old woman, even if that is what I am. I don't like to be constantly reminded of my age. And having all those...young slayers buzzing around me, just waiting to hear a story from the old days...it's just not me. I'm happy here. The people around here are nice and they have no idea who I am. I'm just Anne to them and no one else," she explained. Angel stared into her eyes and smiled. Those were the same eyes he had stared into just a day ago and they were the only thing unchanged by time in Buffy Summers. "So is this just a courtesy visit or do you have some ulterior motive?"

"You caught me," he admitted.

"It's been a long time since you came here with an ulterior motive," she said thinking back to his past visits. "Let's hear it."

"I... uhm, I ran into Spike the other day. One of those save the world situations," he said. "And he found out you're alive."

"Angel!" she frowned. "I thought we talked about this before. There's no way..."

"I know, but then I never thought I'd actually see him again. And I told him everything. What you said," he looked down at his hands. "And he wants to see you."

"No!" Buffy protested. "I'm old. I'm like a prune and my hair is white. There is no way I'm going to see him..."

"He's outside," Angel interrupted her.

"What!" she was outraged. "How could you let him come here!"

"He said he wasn't going to leave my apartment until I brought him here. And now he's not leaving until you see him," he explained.

"That's just like Spike," she smiled and standing up, went to the window and looked outside. The vampire was pacing in front of her cabin with a lit cigar between his lips. "Tell him to come in."

Angel stood up, opened the door and yelled the vampire's name. Spike immediately rushed towards the cabin and entered through the now opened door.

"Hello, Spike," the old woman saluted him with a sad smile on her lips.

"Hello, Buffy," he said and took her by surprise when he suddenly hugged her. "Don't ever let me think you're dead again, you hear me?"

"Not unless it's for real," she promised and smiled at Angel over the vampire's shoulder.

_New York City  
Year: 2083_

"So guess who bagged herself two vampires last night?" one of the girls bragged to Mina and her companions as they walked down the corridor to their next class together.

"How many brownie points did you get for them, Carrie?" another girl asked her.

"7. That puts me only 12 points behind Mina. Your throne, missy, is under serious danger," Carrie told Mina smiling.

"Whatever," Mina simply said.

"What's up with you? You've been out of it all day," Carrie pointed out.

"I just have a few things on my mind, that's all," Mina assured them.

"Gee, thanks!" she heard a familiar voice say and she turned around to see a skinny teenage girl that had just been knocked off her feet by a student rushing by.

"Mina! Did you hear what I just said?" Carrie asked trying to snap her out of her reverie.

"Just wait a minute," Mina told them and headed over to the girl, extending a hand to help her up.

"Thanks," the girl said timidly.

"You're welcome," Mina said and after a moment of silence she turned away, intending to return to her friends.

"You're a slayer, aren't you?" the girl stopped her.

"Yeah, I am," Mina turned back towards her and began helping her gather her books off the floor. "You're one too, right?"

"I just found out yesterday," the girl confessed. "I'm having my first meeting with my watcher today. I'm kinda nervous about it."

"Oh, don't worry, they don't give you a physical exam during the first meeting. That's done later on," Mina explained as she handed her her books.

"Charlene D'Onofrio?" a voice startled the girl from behind making her drop her books again.

"Yes, that's me," the girl replied nervously to the young man in the tweed costume. "But my friends call me Charlie."

"I'm your designated watcher, my name is Rupert MacAlistair-Giles II," he introduced himself and Mina stared at him for a moment. "I was sent here from the West Coast Slayer Association especially to train you."

"I'm sorry, but do we know each other?" Mina asked him.

"I don't think so," the watcher replied. "But I am suffering from an... I believe it's called, uhm, acute amnesia."

"Mina Parker," she extended her hand. "Nice to meet you."

"Likewise," he shook her hand. "You do have a very familiar face."

"You too," Mina thought she had seen him before, but she just couldn't remember where. They stared at each other for a moment, before Mina snapped out of it and addressing the younger girl told her: "I'll be seeing you around then, Charlie."

"I guess so," the girl smiled as the slayer departed, joining her friends again.

"Shall we?" Rupert gestured towards the front doors of the school.

"Giles? Is that in any way related to the Rupert Giles?" Charlie asked the watcher as they headed out of the highschool.

Mina looked back at them another time and then continued on her way to class, deaf to her friends' conversation. So maybe she wasn't the one. The chosen. That one born into each generation, but she was a slayer. She was the best at what she did. She was the elite. The creme de la crème. The best protector the world could ever have. She was smart, she was beautiful, she could kick anyone's ass and she was damn proud of it. She was Mina Parker and she ruled her highschool like a queen among peasants, a god among mortals and she was a slayer. Maybe not by birth right, not by blood, but by the right given to her by the greatest slayer that had ever lived. By Buffy Summers.

_The End_


End file.
